


A Door to Somewhere

by MaryRoyale



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clint Barton & Darcy Lewis Friendship, F/M, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Political Science is NOT a History Major, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & James "Bucky" Barnes Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryRoyale/pseuds/MaryRoyale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor was gone, and Jane was inconsolable. Darcy had been willing to help her best friend in any way that she could, up to and including building wormholes to travel to Asgard. Unfortunately, Jane's wormhole experiment didn't exactly turn out the way that Jane, or Darcy, had expected. </p><p>Trapped in what appears to be 1940s New York City, Darcy is helped by a good Samaritan named Mrs. Rogers who offers her a place to stay. As Darcy becomes closer to Steve, Mrs. Rogers' son, she can't help but worry about what will happen if she somehow makes it back to her own time/world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> According to the Marvel Wiki: In the Thor: Dark World Prelude, Jane continued with her research to find a way to bring Thor back to Earth. She tried to open a wormhole but failed. 
> 
> This story is based on the premise that the wormhole didn't fail, but it didn't exactly open a portal to Asgard either. 
> 
> So this is a Darcy time travel fic. Because REASONS.

One of the things that Darcy prided herself on was being a good friend. Bad day at work? She was there with ice cream, Kleenex, and a comfy shoulder. Boyfriend trouble? Sure, she’d help you build a wormhole so that you could visit with your demi-god boo. What were friends for, if not for ripping apart the fabric of space?

Really, what was Darcy _supposed_ to say to Jane’s sad face? No, I can’t help you reunite with the love of your life? What kind of heartless bastard would be able to do that to Jane? Not Darcy, that’s for sure.

So when Jane decided that they could build a wormhole that would link them to Bifrost Darcy agreed to help her. Unfortunately… punching a hole in space wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Everything seemed to be going fine—all the readouts were normal—right up until Darcy got sucked into the wormhole and dumped somewhere _else_. When she found Thor and got back home she was going to give Jane a big talking to… if she was even in Asgard. Hopefully she wasn’t in Jotunheim. That place sounded decidedly less-than-friendly to Midgardian-types like herself.

“Ow.” Darcy whimpered in pain when she tried to move.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” A worried voice asked.

“No,” Darcy replied. Seriously, she was as far from ‘all right’ as it was possible to be.

“Do you need help?” The worried voice sounded as though it had moved closer.

“Can you just put me out of my misery?” Darcy asked. She tried to shift her weight so that she could sit up, and she hissed in pain.

Gentle hands helped her to sit up, and Darcy looked up into the thin, worried face of an older woman wearing some kind of vintage nurse’s uniform—the kind you always saw in old movies, or old tv episodes. She had kindly eyes, and there was something about her that Darcy immediately trusted. She couldn’t put her finger on it, exactly, but there was something about the older woman that put her at ease. Bright blue eyes flicked over her, cataloguing her bruises, and the older woman sighed.

“Never seen anybody fall out of the sky like that before,” she observed carefully.

“I’ve never fallen out of the sky before,” Darcy offered. She frowned and hissed in pain again. “I don’t really recommend it.”

The other woman’s lips twitched. “You look like hell,” she stated bluntly. “Why don’t you come home with me and we’ll get you patched up.”

Darcy blinked up at the other woman. “But… I fell out of the sky! What if I’m an evil alien, or a villain or something?”

The other woman shook her head. “I doubt that. You look plenty human to me.” She grimaced slightly. “You bleed just like one anyhow.”

Darcy stared at the other woman in shock. Where she came from total strangers didn’t help out people that fell out of the sky. They called 911 and hid in their house with a shotgun handy.

“I… thank you,” she blurted out when she could. She held out her hand. “Darcy Lewis.”

“Sarah Rogers,” the other woman replied. She took her hand and shook it gingerly—mindful of Darcy’s injuries. “Come on, let’s get you to my place before anyone starts poking around.”

It was a short walk to Sarah Rogers’ tiny apartment. She bade Darcy to sit in one of the chairs in the tiny kitchen area and she carefully cleaned all of the grit out of all of Darcy’s wounds.

“Well, your clothes are ruined,” Sarah informed with a sigh. She frowned at Darcy’s jeans and sweater. “Is that what women wear where you come from?”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Darcy asked with a worried look down at her ripped sweater and shredded jeans.

“It’ll get you unwelcome attention here,” Sarah explained. “Don’t worry though, I’ve got some dresses you can borrow.”

“Dresses?” Darcy blinked. “Sarah… without sounding like an evil alien… where am I?”

“Brooklyn,” Sarah replied automatically. She paused for a moment and then added, “New York.”

Darcy frowned. Her clothes would be fine for Brooklyn. Sarah’s vintage get-up made her belly roil unpleasantly. Everything was adding up in an extremely unpleasant way.

“Okay,” Darcy murmured slowly and took several deep breaths. “This is going to sound even more crazy… what year is it?”

Sarah frowned at her. “1939, of course.”

“Of course,” Darcy echoed weakly. Then she fainted.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Women falling out of the sky should be more troubling, Sarah recognized that, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. All she saw were the injuries and the worry and fear in Darcy Lewis’ eyes, and she could have cared less. Sarah was a nurse—taking care of people was just what she did. After working in hospitals all of her adult life, Sarah had developed a sense about people. She knew if somebody was lying to her about how they got injured. So this young woman happened to come from… _somewhere else_. It didn’t mean that she didn’t deserve a little help. Sarah shrugged. It was no use worrying over what couldn’t be fixed. If there was one thing that being Steven’s mother had taught her—it was that.

“Ma? You home?”

_Speak of the devil._

“In here, son,” Sarah called out.

Steve poked his head into the living room and smiled at her. His smile froze when he caught sight of the dark haired girl on the couch.

“Ma?” Steve nodded toward the girl. “Who’s she?”

Sarah looked at the sleeping girl and then turned back to smile at her son.

“Just a woman that needs our help,” she told him. “Her name is Darcy Lewis.”

 

 

/\/\/\/\

 

At some point Darcy woke and rolled off of the couch and shuffled into the kitchen. There was a slight figure hunched over the kitchen table with a pencil in his hand, and an expression of deep concentration on his face. Darcy frowned at him. He looked like Jane on a science bender. Dark smudges beneath his eyes and his hair stuck up in several places. His skin had the pale look that most scientists had, which usually meant a severe lack of sun or being outdoors. He was too thin and his cheekbones and wrist bones were in prominent relief. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was two in the morning. Darcy’s inner scientist-wrangler with all of its over-protective instincts reared its head.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” She demanded with a frown.

The slight figure started and turned to look at her with wide eyes. “What?”

“It’s two in the morning. Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Darcy repeated.

He frowned at her. “Why? You think I’ve got school in the morning or something?” He scowled at her. “I’m 21, doll. I’m old enough to stay up late.”

Darcy’s frown deepened. “No, I think you’re on artistic bender and you’re pushing your body past its limits. You need sleep.”

A dark expression flashed in his eyes and he glared at her. “What do you know about my body,” he snapped.

Darcy rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not trying to impugn your manhood. Look, buddy, even Superman sleeps, right?” She paused and bit her lip. “Do you guys even have Superman?”

The glare faltered, and he blinked at her. “What? I know who Superman is,” he grumbled. Then the man flushed. “Sorry.”

Darcy sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, too, okay? I’m always letting my mouth run away from me and getting in trouble for it.” She held out her hand and smiled winningly at him. “Let’s start over. I’m Darcy Lewis. I fell out of the sky, and your mom let me crash on your couch.”

He stared at her and then stared at her hand. Eventually he took her hand and shook it gingerly.

“Steve Rogers, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you.” He paused and tilted his head to the side. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” He asked curiously.

“Is what supposed to be your line?” Darcy countered.

“You fallin’ from heaven,” Steve explained with a smirk.

Darcy rolled her eyes at him. “It wasn’t like that.”

“If you say so, Angel.” The smirk grew.

Living in 1939 wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Darcy didn’t have money here, or a marketable skill set. Also? It was kind of the Depression with a capital ‘D’. A lot of men couldn’t find work, let alone one out-of-place woman. She _really_ wasn’t behind the sexist bullcrap that ran rampant in 1930s New York, but she couldn’t do much about it. Sarah had a good job working as a nurse at some kind of specialized hospital, and Steve worked on a WPA project at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum painting murals. What on earth could Darcy do?

To pay back Sarah, who obviously couldn’t really afford an extra mouth to feed, Darcy tried to help out around the house. She cleaned and cooked and did anything else she could think of to make Sarah’s life easier. The grateful expression on Sarah’s tired face when she came home from another 12-hour shift was worth it.

“Hey, Angel,” Steve called as he came into the apartment. “Where are you?”

Darcy rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “In the kitchen,” she called back. She turned toward the door with a wooden spoon in one hand. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” She growled at him as he pushed open the kitchen door.

Steve grinned at her unrepentantly. Following on his heels was a tall, dark-haired man who eyed her appreciatively and smirked at Steve. “You were right,” he told Steve. “Definitely an angel.”

“Keep it up, buster,” Darcy snapped and held up a fist, “and you’ll see how much of an angel I am.”

“This is my friend,” Steve introduced them, gesturing to the tall, dark-haired man. “James Barnes. Bucky, this is Miss Darcy Lewis.”

“Ma’am,” Bucky nodded at her politely.

“Why’re you so cranky, Darcy?” Steve asked with a worried frown.

It had only taken a few arguments before Steve had, reluctantly, begun to call her by her given name.

“I need a job,” Darcy sighed. “I need to find a way to make money and pay back your mother for everything she’s done for me.”

“Ma didn’t help you because she expected a hand out,” Steve argued his frown growing.

Darcy shrugged. “I know that, but it doesn’t feel right.”

Bucky laughed. “She sounds like you, Steve.”

Darcy stuck out her tongue at him. Maybe it wasn’t exactly mature, but neither were they. Bucky only laughed harder, and Steve joined him. Darcy rolled her eyes. _Men_.

“What about the Children’s Museum?” Bucky suggested over soup and sandwiches.

“What about it?” Darcy asked. “I don’t know one end of a paintbrush from another.”

“Yeah, but you can yell at painters and get ‘em to listen to you, according to Steve,” Bucky pointed out.

Steve flushed pink. “Jerk,” he muttered.

Bucky grinned. “Hey, I’m just grateful that you can get this bonehead to sleep regular, you know?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s my one talent—browbeating people into eating and sleeping regularly.”

Bucky leaned forward with an earnest expression. “I ain’t knockin’ it, doll,” he told her sincerely.

Darcy just sighed.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Interestingly enough, wrangling artists was almost exactly like wrangling scientists. Making sure that they were watered, fed, and well-rested felt reassuringly familiar. Darcy could argue with distributors and other outsiders—making sure that ‘her’ artists were able to focus on their art. Her boss was ostensibly an artist named Ellis Credle who appreciated Darcy’s sass and her ability to keep people from interrupting Credle’s work.

The job paid well enough, and Darcy was able to contribute to the Rogers household, which made her feel a whole lot better. She wasn’t sure how long she was going to be stuck in the past, and she didn’t want to be a burden to the woman who’d been kind enough to help her. Darcy genuinely liked Sarah, and had begun to view her as a mother-figure. Sarah had taught her how to roll her hair up, how to make sure that the seams of her stockings were straight, and how fit in to the world in which she found herself.

In this world, Darcy struggled to adjust to daily life. Growing up she’d been teased and taunted when she started developing at 10. All during middle school she’d been called fat, and made to feel ugly and hideous. It had taken her years to feel comfortable in her own skin. Here… she could feel the appreciative gazes that followed her when Steve escorted her to and from work. Several men had tried to ask her out, but she had turned all of them down. Darcy didn’t need a boyfriend, or a ‘steady fellow’ as Sarah would say, Darcy needed to find a way home.

“Hey, Angel?” Steve scuffed his shoe on the floor and ducked his head.

Darcy looked up from the newspaper and frowned. “What’s the matter with you, Steve?” she asked curiously.

“Doyouwannagototheflickers?” He blurted out in one breath.

Darcy blinked at him. “What?”

“Do you want to go to the flickers? With me, I mean?” He tried again.

“The… flickers?” Darcy was confused.

“The moving picture show?” He clarified.

“Oh! The movies!” Darcy laughed. “What’s playing?”  


“The Wizard of Oz,” Steve explained with a grin. “It looks swell.”

“Sounds like fun,” Darcy told him with a grin. Steve’s answering smile lit up his face. “Is Bucky coming, too?”

Just like that, Steve’s smile fell. “You’d rather go with Buck?” He asked quietly and his eyes flashed some kind of dark, seething emotion at her.

Darcy frowned. The look in Steve’s eye made her stomach flip. “I didn’t say that,” she protested. She put her hand on his arm. “I’m trying to get the hang of this, Steve. Isn’t it… is it okay for a girl to go by herself with a guy? Doesn’t Bucky usually drag you off on double dates?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“So… make him find a date and we can double,” Darcy suggested.

Steve’s blinding smile was back, and Darcy tried to ignore the butterflies it gave her.

 

Slowly, without Darcy even realizing it, Steve Rogers was creeping into all the secret recesses of her heart. He was such a genuinely good man. God knew he had a temper, and she argued with him on a regular basis about everything under the sun, but she had to admit that his moral compass pointed true North. The moment of truth came when Steve came home with a black eye and a split lip… again.

Despite Sarah’s disapproval, Steve got into regular fist fights, especially when he felt that somebody was picking on someone smaller or weaker. While Darcy couldn’t help but appreciate his attitude, every time he came home covered in bruises Darcy’s heart jumped in her throat. It did no good to point out that Steve’s slight frame guaranteed that he’d come out the worse in any fight so Sarah and Darcy had given up trying to convince him otherwise. Darcy’s hands fisted on her hips and the gleam of battle shone in her eyes. Bucky held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

“This one wasn’t his fault, Darcy,” Bucky told her. “There was this jerk was trying to get fresh with a girl from the neighborhood.”

Darcy sighed. “Damn it, Steve.” She took a deep breath to center herself. It would do no good to yell at him.

“Sorry, Angel,” Steve muttered.

“Oh, shut up and sit down,” Darcy huffed. “I can’t yell at you for making sure some poor girl didn’t get raped.” Both men flinched at her bald use of the word they’d tried skirting around. “Who was it?”

“Rachel Dryer.” Bucky’s mouth tightened in anger. “She’s only 14, Darcy.”

Darcy grimaced. “Is she okay, or do we need to see if Sarah should pay her a call?”

“Just shaken up a bit,” Steve mumbled around the compress Darcy had pressed to his face. “Her ma and one of the neighbor ladies are making sure that she’s all right. Figured that me and Buck would just make her more nervous.”

“That guy won’t show his face around here any time soon,” Bucky added with satisfaction.

“Good,” Darcy muttered as she treated Steve’s lip.

Steve grinned at her and then winced. “So you’re not mad at me?” He asked hopefully.

Darcy sighed. “Not tonight, but don’t push it, Rogers.”

“Sure thing, Angel.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

It didn’t take a genius to see that Darcy Lewis was a gorgeous dame. She had curves that went on for days, thick, lustrous, dark hair, and eyes that a man could drown in. Add to that a heart of gold, and a whole lotta sass and was it any wonder that Steve had fallen head over heels for her? He knew that she came from somewhere else—that she’d fallen out of the sky—but he didn’t care. Darcy was the girl for him… now if only he could convince her of that.

The only problem was that dames like Darcy never looked twice at guys like Steve. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that his skinny frame, severe lack of muscles and short stature wasn’t exactly reeling them in. Dames dismissed him on a regular basis. He moved through the world overlooked and ignored by most people. Darcy never made him feel like that. She always listened to him, and she took what he had to say to heart. She made his pulse race and his body sing.

“Ma, can I talk to you?” Steve asked.

“Of course, Steve, honey,” Ma looked up from her sewing to smile at him. “What’s bothering you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Steve sat down on the couch and looked at his hands.

“Is it Darcy?” Ma asked quietly.

Steve’s eyes darted to his mother’s face and he sighed. “Yeah.”

“You like her,” Ma noted as she carefully darned his socks.

“Yeah,” Steve sighed heavily.

“She likes you, too,” Ma told him.

Steve snorted. “Right.”

“Sweetheart, you know that Darcy is special,” Ma said; hinting at the fact that Darcy fell out of the sky—a subject that all of them avoided by mutual agreement. “Why wouldn’t she be able to see what no one else has?”

“Ma,” Steve protested.

“Steve,” Ma countered. “I’ve seen the way that girl watches you and it is most certainly not angelic.”

Steve blushed. “She does?”

Ma sighed and shook her head. “Talk to the girl before she gets tired of waiting.”

Steve stared at his mother for a minute. “Yes ma’am.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

When Christmas rolled around it was almost a surprise to Darcy. She’d been in the past for almost six months. While Sarah and Steve decorated their little apartment Darcy hid in the bathroom and had a mini-breakdown. She missed Jane and Erik. She missed her crazy pseudo-family. But most of all, she was frightened of how right it felt to be here with the Rogers family, with Steve, instead of in her own place and time.

Once she finally calmed down she splashed cold water on her face and checked her hair and make-up. She didn’t want to upset Sarah or Steve by making them feel guilty. She slipped out of the bathroom to find Bucky and Steve teasing Sarah. Darcy smiled at the picture they made. They both turned to look at her and Buck started laughing, but Steve just turned beet red.

“What?” Darcy demanded. Her hands flew to her face. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?”

“Look up, doll,” Bucky wheezed at her.

Darcy looked up and saw a huge sprig of mistletoe nailed over the doorway.

“Oh.” She swallowed nervously and felt her cheeks flush. Her eyes flew to Steve who was staring at her. She bit her lip. In her world, among her own friends and family, she would make some sort of smart-ass crack, but staring into Steve’s intense blue eyes made any possible wise cracks die unspoken on her tongue.

Steve moved toward her as if he was being pulled to her. He stopped when he was standing in front of her, and he had blushed even darker if that were possible. The soft brush of his lips against hers was so fleeting that she though perhaps she’d only imagined it. So she leaned towards him and pressed her lips to his, letting her eyes flutter closed. He froze against her for just a moment and then he relaxed and his lips pressed to hers. The soft velvet of his lips moving against hers made her spine tingle. She pulled back and smiled at him. The grin on his face was positively goofy.

“Took you two long enough,” Sarah muttered and she marched off to the kitchen to make cocoa.

Bucky just started laughing again.

On Christmas Day, Steve had the first asthma attack that Darcy actually witnessed for herself. Terror gripped her as she watched the man she loved struggle to breathe, but Sarah’s calm demeanor helped Darcy keep her head. She followed the older woman’s business-like instructions as they both helped Steve through his attack. The bullshit thing was, in the 1930s… they thought asthma was a psychological thing—that Steve could just mentally power himself through it. Darcy bit her lip to keep from going on a diatribe about ‘talking yourself over’ an asthma attack.

“He’ll be fine, Darcy,” Sarah murmured as they watched Steve sleep fitfully. She sighed and put a hand to his brow. “He’s the most stubborn man I know. What would fell most men just makes him more determined.”

“I know,” Darcy replied softly.

“You love him,” Sarah observed. “I can see it in the way you watch him.”

Darcy nodded. “I do.”

“But you’re holding yourself back,” Sarah pointed out. She watched Darcy for a moment. “Is it because you’re waiting to go home? What if that never happens?”

Darcy sighed. Sarah had an excellent point. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “What if I let this thing between us happen, and then I go back?”

Sarah was quiet for several long minutes. “Darcy, honey, it’s not my place to say, but what’s the use of sitting around worrying about what might or might not happen? That’s no way to live your life.”

The annoying part was that Sarah was right. It wasn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Making the Best of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy adjusting to 1940s Brooklyn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was a History major so I always get a little frustrated with Darcy's Political Science degree is treated as though it is equivalent to a History degree. Political Science is the study of governments and the political factions within them: how and why governments work the way they do. In addition to that, the current trends (by "current" I mean for the last 50 years or so) of studying history do NOT focus on individuals. In all of my classes, I was never once asked to or encouraged to write a paper on an individual. Usually it would be more like "How the Socio-Economic Climate of the Weimar Republic Facilitated the Rise of the Nazi Party". So *please* do not send me angry messages about why Darcy doesn't automatically know who Steve Rogers is/will be. I really wanted her to like him for himself--not because he's Captain America.

1940 was a brand-new year. Still a Depression with a capital ‘D’, though. So when Darcy and Steve went out with Bucky and whatever girl he was stepping out with that week they picked things that didn’t cost a lot. The movies were usually a cheap option with tickets costing 24 cents apiece. Four of them could go for a dollar, and popcorn was only 10 cents a bag. As a bonus, Darcy was getting a great film education since 1940 was a banner year for movies.

“Aw, come on, Steve,” Darcy wheedled shamelessly.

“Angel, it’s a kids’ movie,” Steve protested.

“But it’s Disney!” Darcy pointed out.

Steve just looked at her. “What does that have to do with anything?” His honest confusion was adorable, and made Darcy want to kiss him.

“Please?” Darcy tried again while she mentally told her hormones to behave themselves.

“Fine,” Steve sighed. “What’s it called again?”

“Pinocchio,” Darcy replied.

 

Going to the movies was all fun and games… until it wasn’t. _My Favorite Wife_ was supposed to be a fun, light-hearted movie, but Darcy could feel her face heat up as she watched it, and she knew that Steve was sneaking glances at her. The basic premise was that Irene Dunne’s character was presumed dead, and after seven years the courts had declared her legally dead. Cary Grant’s character (after grieving for his supposedly dead wife for seven years) was finally ready to remarry, and was at the altar with wife #2—only to have wife #1 show up.

After the movie the two of them walked home slowly. Normally, Darcy tucked her arm through Steve’s and they walked along together. Tonight, neither one of them were touching.

“Darcy?” Steve almost never used her name unless it was something serious. He usually called her Angel, although sometimes he called her doll.

“Yes, Steve?” Darcy’s stomach was queasy and her palms were sweaty.

“What would you want me to do if you went back?” He asked quietly.

Through an unspoken agreement none of them ever really talked about where Darcy had come from. She figured it was probably safer that way for everybody. Also unspoken was the very tentative, fragile relationship that was developing between Steve and Darcy. That he wanted to discuss both, now, was a little scary. Darcy stopped walking and turned to face him.

“Steve… if I do go back… it would be permanent,” she explained as gently as she could. “I wouldn’t have a way to come back to you. It was… it was just a chance fluke that I came here in the first place.”

He nodded solemnly. “I don’t want you to go back,” he admitted in a soft voice. He grimaced. “That makes me a selfish bas-er, a selfish so-and-so, doesn’t it?”

Darcy shrugged. “To be honest, as more time passes here the less I want to go back,” she confessed. She grimaced and shrugged. “I miss my family and my friends, but you…”

Steve’s hands gripped hers tightly and he pulled her toward him. He kissed her urgently — as though she might disappear any minute — and Darcy kissed him back with everything she had in her. It was a messy, greedy kiss — all teeth and tongues and the both of them panting into one another’s mouths. A loud wolf whistle reminded them that they were standing right on a public sidewalk, and they broke apart blushing. Steve cleared his throat and Darcy took his arm.

“So, if you went back?” Steve asked later.

Darcy sighed. “If I wanted to be fair to you I would tell you to move on and find someone who could make you happy.”

Steve nodded. “And if you didn’t want to be fair to me?” He asked with a little twitch to his lips.

Darcy laughed. “I’d tell that you had to remain alone for the rest of your life, but… Steve… I don’t want that for you. You deserve to be happy.”

Steve snorted and gestured to his slight frame. “Angel, it ain’t exactly like dames are lining up to fight over me. I ain’t no Cary Grant.”

“Well,” Darcy shrugged, “I can’t help if the rest of them are too stupid to see what a great catch you are.”

Steve grinned and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Tomorrow was Saturday, which was Steve’s standing date night with Darcy… his Angel. Every time he thought about the fact that he had a steady girl, and that she was somebody as beautiful, as smart, and as funny as Darcy Lewis his ears would get pink. He cleared his throat and tried to focus on the mural in front of him. Miss Credle had given him very strict instruction about what was supposed to be on the mural, and he couldn’t afford to muck it up. He concentrated on the task in front of him, and let pleasant daydreams about holding and kissing his Angel in the darkness of the theater slide back where they belonged.

Lunchtime was when Darcy clicked her way down hallways confiscating brushes and threatening artists with bodily harm if they didn’t find their way to the cafeteria and ‘at least eat a sandwich for Pete’s sake’. Steve loved watching her go toe-to-toe with his boss, Miss Credle. A fiery glint would enter Darcy’s eyes and she would growl at the woman who was in charge of the whole darn project. It was entertaining to say the least.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Steve had asked her one time.

Darcy had shrugged. “I was going to college and I needed an internship. I worked for an astrophysicist who was almost as bad as you guys.”

“An astro-what?” Steve had blinked at her in surprise. Sometimes Darcy would throw words out there that he’d never even heard of before.

Darcy had bitten her lip and then had given him a weak smile. “Um… a scientist who studies stars and planets—well, space really. Mine was fascinated with a specific anomaly that… um, never mind about that bit, actually.”

“Can’t talk about it?” Steve had guessed.

Darcy had nodded. “You got it,” she agreed.

“Must be hard, bein’ an angel,” he had teased her.

Darcy shook his head and laughed. “I try my best to fit in here,” she told him with a smirk. “Trust me, Steve, if you met me in my own… where I belong… I’m no angel.”

Steve gave her a warm little smile that belonged to Darcy alone. “You look like an angel to me.”

Darcy rolled her eyes at him. “Eat your sandwich, Rogers.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

History had never been Darcy’s subject. She was drawn to political science because she was very much an ‘in the now’ sort of woman. All of her courses had been geared toward working governments—not how they’d been founded.

To her embarrassment, she hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the newsreels. She had been too conscious of fact that Steve was sitting right next to her, and that his arm brushed hers when he shifted in his seat.

Paris fell to Hitler. Darcy wasn’t stupid. She knew what was happening in Europe in a vague sort of way. Her kind-of-boyfriend watched the newsreels with an intense, solemn expression that made her stomach tie in knots. But still… Paris fell. _Paris_. For some reason, she hadn’t really remembered that bit from History class.

Then again, her History teacher had been obsessed with the Pacific theater, and they had spent most of their allotted time on WWII talking about Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Philippines, and MacArthur. If Darcy was remembering correctly her instructor’s mother had been in an internment camp in the Philippines during the war so perhaps he had been biased. Right now, she was wishing that he’d talked a bit more about the situation in Europe.

“I bet Hitler’s gonna go after Britain next,” Steve muttered to her as they trailed behind Bucky and his date.

Darcy bit her lip and didn’t say anything.

When Steve came home with a bruised jaw and a sprained wrist after getting into a fight with Nazi sympathizers who were telling people not to sign up for the new peacetime draft Darcy didn’t yell at him at all. She treated his wounds silently, and when she served dinner he got the biggest portions he’d ever seen. He looked at his plate and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Angels don’t like Nazis?” He asked pointedly.

Darcy pressed her lips together. “No,” she bit out between clenched teeth.

Steve grinned at her then. “Good to know.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

“You seem to be chasing more skirt than normal, Buck,” Steve observed quietly. He nudged his best friend with his shoulder. “Something bothering you?”

Bucky sighed and hunched his shoulders. He was silent for several minutes, but then he shook his head.

“I’ve never been jealous of you,” he muttered at last.

Steve snorted. “Ain’t much to be jealous of, Buck. You got both your parents. You got your health. You got girls lined up for the next year.”

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But you do have one thing I don’t.”

Steve went still. Bucky was his best friend, but his Angel was… well, she was his. He swallowed hard and stared at his hands in his lap.

“Are you sayin’ you’re sweet on Darcy?” Steve asked.

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t want your girl,” Bucky explained. “I want my own… a girl like Darcy. Somebody smart and sassy. Somebody who loves me enough to badger me about all the stuff I should be doin’. Somebody who would be proud of me.”

Steve twisted his hands nervously. “Yeah.”

“Don’t let her slip through your fingers, Steve,” Bucky warned him.

“Ma says the same thing,” Steve muttered.

Bucky snorted. “Your ma’s a smart woman.” Bucky frowned at Steve. “Why’re you dragging your feet, Steve? You’ve been stepping out with Darcy for over a year now. She’s your steady girl. She doesn’t go out with other fellows. From what I’ve seen she doesn’t want to.”

“It’s… complicated,” Steve mumbled. How could he explain the circumstances to Bucky without having his best friend either bust a gut laughing, or rush him to a sanitarium to talk to one those psychologists.

“Steve.” Bucky was frowning at him. “It’s only as complicated as you make it out to be. She’s a doll. You’re a guy. Seems pretty simple to me.”

“I guess so,” Steve agreed reluctantly.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Money had never been easy to come by in the Rogers household, and Steve had learned the value of a dollar at a young age. Under his bed he had an old cigar box with money that he saved for a rainy day. The local jeweler was a man who had known Steve since he was a kid. Ma had taken care of Mr. Kitteridge’s wife when she caught tuberculosis. He had been very grateful, and he always tipped his hat to Steve’s ma whenever he saw her on the street. Things like that meant a lot to Steve so he never really considered going anywhere else.

“Steve Rogers,” Mr. Kitteridge greeted him with an air of surprise. “What brings you into my shop?”

Steve cleared his throat. “I need a ring, sir.”

Mr. Kitteridge’s eyebrows rose. “I see.” He smiled slightly and nodded. “A special girl then.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You know, I have a ring that I have been keeping. It too is something special.”

The ring was beautiful, and it matched Darcy perfectly: a small marquise sapphire that matched the blue of Darcy’s eyes surrounded by diamonds in a platinum filigree band.

“Mr. Kitteridge,” Steve protested. “There’s no way that I can afford this.”

“You’ll pay on it, over time,” Mr. Kitteridge explained. “I’ll keep it in the safe with your name on it. Once it’s all paid off you’ll take it and propose to your girl.”

“Yes sir,” Steve agreed.

It was going to take months for Steve to pay off the ring, but it would be worth it when he saw the look on Darcy’s face.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

That winter Steve caught pneumonia. It wasn’t anything new or unusual. Steve caught pneumonia, or got bronchitis, or sinusitis at least once a year. Last year, he’d had a nasty bout of bronchitis that had stayed with him for months, but that was before Darcy had fallen out of the sky. He laid in bed, breathing shallowly and dozing in and out of sleep. Whenever he woke either his mother or Darcy was sitting next to him. He had hazy memories of her hands stroking over his skin as she put cool compresses on his forehead or changed out the mustard plasters on his chest.

“Angel,” he wheezed and tried to clutch at her fingers.

“I’m here,” she whispered back.

Her voice sounded all wrong—it sounded wobbly and shaky. Steve blinked and tried to peer up at her face.

“Don’t cry.”

Her fingers tightened on his. “Can’t help it,” she retorted. She sniffled a little. “Where I come from… they’ve got all kinds of stuff that could help you, but here… it’s… it’s…” she waved at his chest.

“An excuse for you to see me half-naked and fondle my poor body,” Steve suggested with an attempt at a leer.

Darcy smacked him on the arm. “Don’t you dare joke about this,” she snapped. “I love you, you idiot, and if you up and die on me I swear I’ll find a way to make you pay.”

The low lamp light caught on Darcy’s hair, and illuminated the flash of fire in her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips were swollen the way they were when she bit at them. He could see the tear tracks on her cheeks, and he knew that she was worried about him. _She loved him_. He sort of knew that all along, but now there was no way that he could deny it or ignore it. Darcy Lewis loved him.

“Marry me,” he blurted out.

Darcy went completely still and her eyes widened. “That’s not funny, Rogers.”

“No joke, Angel. Marry me,” Steve countered.

“But I--,” Darcy bit her already swollen lips. “What if I go back?” She asked quietly.

Steve shrugged, and then coughed. “What if you walk outside and get hit by a bus?” He pointed out. “None of us knows how long we have here. If I get even one day with you as Mrs. Steven Rogers, well, that’s good enough for me.”

“Steven,” Darcy whispered.

“What’s it gonna be, Angel?” Steve pressed.

Darcy closed her eyes and a single tear slipped down her cheek. “Yes,” she whispered.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Sarah insisted that Darcy call her ‘Ma’, which felt weird to her at first, but she got used to it. There was a ring. As soon as Steven recovered he went and retrieved it and proposed all over again. The bright sapphire winked on Darcy’s hand, and she held it up to stare at it. There were mornings when Darcy woke up, and she found it very difficult to remember her other life. Her family, Jane, and Erik were like a dull ache in her chest, but the rest of it… a life without Steve or Sarah Rogers seemed empty.

Some days she would worry about what could happen, and she wasted bucketsful of tears in the shower where Steve and Sarah couldn’t see and wouldn’t know. Some days she just let herself be a young woman who was in love and engaged to be married. Most of the time Darcy felt as though she were trapped between two worlds: longing for both of them and yet dreading being stuck in either place forever.

If she were trapped here forever she would have Ma and Steve… and even Bucky, but she would never see Jane or Erik ever again. She would never be greeted by Thor’s booming voice (if he ever came back to Jane). If she was, somehow, returned home she would never again see Ma Rogers or Bucky… or Steve. Just the thought of life without ever seeing Steve ever again made her chest tight. She was completely and utterly screwed no matter what happened. She sighed. Well, that was about par for the course in her life so that actually made sense to her.

 

 

 

 


	3. Lucky

There were guys in the world that deserved a break. Bucky had always thought that Steve was one of those guys, so when Darcy Lewis showed up in their lives, and the sparks flew between the two of them, Bucky was happy for him. He finally figured that Steve had caught his lucky break. It was about damn time, in Bucky’s opinion. Then tuberculosis finally caught up with Mrs. Rogers. She’d been quietly fighting it for years, but in the end she’d gone quickly. It was still a shock for everyone. Some days Bucky still couldn’t believe that she was gone.

Thank god for Darcy. Through it all, Darcy truly had been Steve’s rock. She’d helped through every step of the way. Even when they had to make the funeral plans Darcy had stepped up and helped Steve make the hard decisions. She hadn’t even blinked when everyone referred to her as ‘Mrs. Rogers’. She merely nodded politely, and thanked them for all their help.

All of that meant Bucky was standing with Steve and Darcy at a justice of the peace with Mrs. Penrose who lived down the hall from them. A single guy and girl did _not_ live together unless they wanted everyone to talk about them. Darcy had muttered tartly about maybe in 1941 that might be the case, but not where she came from.

Steve had just stared at her. “You’re telling me that they let Angels live together without being married?” He had demanded incredulously.

“Never mind,” Darcy had huffed. “Let’s go get married.”

So here they were with Mrs. Penrose dabbing at her eyes with a hanky, and Bucky holding Steve’s parents’ wedding rings. Mr. Kitteridge had resized them so that they fit Darcy and Steve. Bucky watched Darcy stare into Steve’s eyes, and Steve stare back into Darcy’s eyes.

“You may kiss the bride,” the justice of the peace announced with a small smile.

In the past couple of years Steve had come a long way. Back then, Steve wouldn’t have known where to put his hands, and he would have been worried about kissing her properly. Now, Steve cupped her elbows and pulled her in so that he could press his lips to hers. Bucky grinned and gave an ear-splitting whistle. Darcy blushed and glared at him.

“Stop it, Bucky,” she commanded. “Poor Mrs. Penrose is going to think we’re hoodlums.”

Mrs. Penrose just smiled. “Oh dearie, my husband was far worse than young James here.”

“Congratulations Mrs. Rogers,” Bucky told her with a big grin. Darcy blushed again.

“Mrs. Rogers,” Steve repeated with a fatuous grin.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Over the years Darcy had wondered once or twice about her wedding, and the wedding night. She wasn’t a virgin—hadn’t been for some time. She had never envisioned a justice of the peace with her in a simple dress that she borrowed from the back of Mrs. Rogers’ closet, and Steve in his best suit. On the other hand, she’d never envisioned falling out of the sky in 1940s Brooklyn either. Darcy supposed that you never knew what the future held, which was why she had said yes to Steve, and why she was cowering in the bathroom in a silk nightie that Mrs. Penrose had given her with a wink and a nudge outside their apartment.

“Every girl should have a little something special for her wedding night, dearie,” Mrs. Penrose had said with a wicked little smirk that no one over the age of 70 ought to wear.

“Thank you,” Darcy had murmured weakly.

“Angel?” Steve called out. “Are you okay in there?”

“Fine,” Darcy replied, and she knew her voice sounded strained.

“Angel, we don’t have to do this tonight.” Steve’s voice sounded muffled through the door, but there was a worried, subdued edge to it that Darcy didn’t care for at all.

“No,” Darcy replied and opened the door. “I want to.”

Steve stared at her for several long minutes, and Darcy knew that she was blushing from her head to her feet. The heat in his gaze pinned her where she stood, and she waited impatiently.

“Well?” She demanded when she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve told her in a rough, hoarse voice.

Darcy smiled at him and pulled him closer. “You’re not so bad yourself, Rogers.”

He snorted at that, and then he leaned forward and kissed her. Darcy’s wedding night was unlike any other sexual encounter she’d ever had in her life, and she supposed that it was because of her groom. Steve treated her with such reverence—as though he couldn’t believe that this was really happening—that Darcy wanted to simultaneously gather him in her arms to cuddle him, and pound everyone that had ever made him feel as though he wasn’t good enough, worthy enough, to have this.

Feather-light kisses against her skin, delicate touches with the tips of his fingers, gentle caresses were all the order of the day. No one had ever treated Darcy like that—as though she were special, and rare—as though she were something sacred. She tried to treat Steve the same way because he deserved it. He was just as special and rare. He was just as wonderful. She explored his body with love and gratitude.

Where others might see the slender frame with the wasted muscles and the concave belly Darcy saw only beauty. She saw the man that she loved and there was nothing more magnificent. When Steve rose above her on trembling arms all she saw was the love in his eyes. She clasped him to her chest and kissed him.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips.

“I know,” Steve replied. He grinned at her and kissed her back. “You married me, didn’t you? You’re stuck with me for life now, Angel.”

“Idiot.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Married life, and the sex that went with it, was everything that Steve always thought it would be, but it was so much more than that. Darcy said that it was important for them to talk about it. She insisted that he tell her what he liked, and what he didn’t. He blushed beet red through that whole conversation, but he was able to tell her what felt good. Darcy also insisted that they use rubbers. She called them condoms, and said that ‘with everything going on’ it was for the best. Steve wasn’t sure if he agreed, but he understood where his Angel was coming from.

What if they had a baby? What happened if Darcy was taken back to wherever she came from? Steve couldn’t decide which scenario was worse: if the baby went with Darcy leaving him here all alone, or if the baby stayed here, but left Darcy all alone. Could Steve stand to look at a kid that resembled Darcy while she was gone from him forever? Or would he cling to the kid because it reminded him of his wife? Any way you looked at it meant no babies for them at the moment.

Besides, with the war in Europe heating up the way it was having babies was the last thing on his mind. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to sign up and enlist, but Ma had been sick, and then there’d been Darcy. He couldn’t very well sign up this very second. He’d just gotten married. What would poor Darcy think if he up and left her the month after they got married? She’d assume that it was her fault somehow, and Steve couldn’t bear to let his Angel think that his enlisting was because of her. So he waited. And bought condoms. And made love to his beautiful wife. And hoped that in the end she’d understand.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

Pearl Harbor had changed everything. Darcy understood that. What she hadn’t realized was _how much_ it had changed everything. Bucky had enlisted right away, and apparently her idiot husband had gone with him and tried to enlist. The army doctors had taken one look at his application and stamped him ‘F-4’. Steve had been so despondent. Darcy had done everything she could to brighten his spirits and that seemed to work for a little while… until it didn’t.

Then her husband came home utterly despondent again.

“I don’t understand.” Darcy watched him carefully. “Why do you keep trying?”

“I want to help,” Steve replied. He scowled at her. “I know I can do something to help if they’d only let me.”

“What about air raid warden, or helping with scrap metal drives,” Darcy suggested. “I bet you could convince people to buy a bunch of war bonds.”

“Angel, that’s not the same,” Steve protested.

That was the start of their first, real fight as a married couple. Steve wanted to join the army like his father. Darcy wanted him to stay home where it was safe.

“How can I stay here when Buck is going over there?” He had demanded furiously.

“Bucky doesn’t need you to keep him safe,” Darcy had protested.

“He’s my best friend! He’s the only person that’s ever been there for me no matter what,” Steve had yelled at her.

Darcy could feel the blood drain from her face, and she could see Steve wince when he realized what he’d said. “I understand,” she’d told him stiffly and then she’d marched to Mrs. Rogers’ old room and shut the door.

Hours later he’d come and rapped softly on the door. “Angel?”

“Yes?” She knew her voice sounded awful—raw and raspy with tears.

“I’m sorry.” Steve’s apology was quiet and sincere.

It would have been so much easier if Darcy could have hated him. If she could have told him to fuck off and die like she would have done back home. But she couldn’t do that to Steve. Not just because he was her husband, but because he was such a good, decent man. He was trying to live up to his own personal code of honor. How could Darcy fault him for that? She sighed and opened the door.

“I’m sorry too,” she rasped at him.

“For what?” Steve asked with a frown. “You didn’t do nothing wrong, Angel.”

Darcy shook her head. “For expecting you to be someone else. You’re Steve Rogers. That’s what I love about you.”

Steve blinked at her. “Okay,” he replied slowly. “I love you, too.”

That night the sex was a little fiercer, a little wilder. Darcy clutched at Steve as though he would escape, and Steve clung to Darcy. Afterward he held her to his chest and buried his face in her hair. Once Steve’s breathing evened out and she knew he was asleep she let the tears slip down her cheeks.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

“Darcy? Darcy? I’ve been accepted,” Steve babbled excitedly into the phone.

“I thought you were going to hang out with Bucky at the Stark Expo.” Darcy stared at the phone in her hand in confusion and then put the receiver back to her ear. “What did you do?”

“There was a recruiting station here, and I’ve been accepted,” Steve explained. “Bucky and I are on our way home, but I’ve got to report next week.”

“Report?” Darcy echoed dully.

“Yeah. To the army base where they’re going to train me,” Steve continued. “It’s a special program. I’m real lucky to get this chance, Angel.”

“Lucky,” Darcy repeated.

“Angel?” Steve’s exuberance wavered. “Angel, are you okay with this?”

“Of course,” Darcy whispered into the phone. “Come home, Steve.”

When Darcy found out that the ‘special program’ was actually some kind of top-secret, totally classified, by-the-way-I-can’t-see-you-talk-to-you-or-write-to-you-for-the-entirety-of-my-training-which-I’m-not-sure-how-long-that-might-be she hit the roof.

“What do you mean you can’t contact me?” Darcy had demanded.

“Angel--,” Steve had tried.

“Don’t you Angel me,” Darcy had cut him off. “I know that soldiers can call their family, or at least write.”

“This is a special program,” Steve had tried to explain.

Darcy had glared at him furiously. “You know what, Steve, marriage is a two way street. We’re supposed to talk about things together. If you had bothered to come and tell me before you accepted… I would have been okay. I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but like I said—I get you. I know how you operate. I know this is what you want. But this… this is pretty underhanded. I’m just stuck with your decision. You’re just going to leave next Tuesday, and we don’t know when we’ll see each other again.”

“Darcy,” Steve tried again. “I’m sorry. I kind of lost my head,” he admitted. “I was so thrilled to get the chance. I was afraid they might change their minds if they had time to think about it.”

Darcy deflated at that. “Oh Steve,” she whispered. “When are you going to realize how amazing you are?”

“You’re not mad at me?” He asked cautiously as he drew closer to her.

Darcy sighed and grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket. “I’m furious with you, Rogers,” she told him before she pulled him to her and kissed him.

Sunday evening they were walking home from the subway station. Steve had wanted to visit his parents’ graves before he left, and Darcy had agreed to go with him. She watched him kneel with his head bowed in front of his father’s tombstone and she twisted the ring on her hand nervously. _Please come home to me_. _Be safe_. Every time she looked at him she thought the same thing.

Steve had her arm and he guided her down a back alley that he told her was a ‘shortcut’. Pins and needles prickled all along Darcy’s skin. She stopped with a frown.

“I know this place.” She turned around in a careful circle. “This is where I landed. It’s where Ma found me.”

“Really?” Steve let go of her arm and prowled around the alley curiously. “This has never really seemed to be a particularly heavenly spot to me before.” He frowned. “I think I got beat up in this alley once.”

“Steve,” Darcy murmured. The prickling sensation grew stronger. “Steve!”

A pulling, twisting sensation took over every nerve. It felt almost as though her very cells were pulling apart. A scream of pain was ripped from her throat and her back bowed of its own accord. Up in the sky a bright light appeared as a portal opened. Darcy cried out again as the light slammed into her, lifting her into the air.

“Angel? Angel—NO!” Steve was running to her side with an anguished expression, but it was too late.

“I love you,” she managed to scream, but she wasn’t sure if he could hear her.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

On Tuesday, Steve Rogers shipped out to Camp Lehigh in Jersey. He was quiet and subdued, but no one really noticed. He threw himself into the program. He owed it to himself, and to his Angel, to make this whole thing worthwhile. When they did the experiment, Steve put all of his personal effects into a manila envelope. Just in case, they all said. Carefully, Steve slid the thick gold band off of his ring finger and put in the envelope. It felt wrong, taking off his wedding ring. He remembered what his Angel had told him—she wanted him to be happy—but it was too soon for him to run out and start dating. It had only been a few months.

After the experiment Steve had changed. A lot. His ring didn’t fit anymore. Steve slid it onto the chain that held his dog tags, and wore his wedding ring next to his heart.

“Jesus, Steve, what happened to you?” Bucky had demanded when Steve had pulled him out of the Hydra factory.

“I joined the Army,” Steve deadpanned.

“Not that,” Bucky retorted with a wave of his hand. “Something happened.”

All at once Steve felt his throat close up. “Angel got called back,” he explained.

Bucky’s eyes widened in shock. “Darcy left you?”

“No, Buck, she got… I _saw_ it,” Steve whispered fiercely. “Straight up in the air _whoosh_.”

Over several beers, and a few hours, Steve finally told Bucky the truth about his Angel. For the most part Bucky just stared at him with wide eyes and drank.

“Was it because she was mad? I mean, about you trying to join up?” Bucky worried aloud.

Steve shook his head. “No. She was,” he swallowed hard. “She was scared, Buck.”

“Well, shit,” Bucky swore.

Steve snorted. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”

 

 

/\/\/\/\

 

There was one thing that all of the Commandoes learned early—do not tease the Captain about Agent Carter. The Captain never lost his temper, but he would become quiet and morose. Dugan was the only one brave enough, or stupid enough, to approach Sgt. Barnes and ask why. The answer was short and to the point: none of your business. Still, there were those nights where the Captain would stay up all night sketching in a notebook. That usually happened after one of his nightmares. Once or twice they’d heard him call out to an angel. Whenever Captain had those nightmares Sgt. Barnes would spend the next day scowling at everything and everyone around them. He would hover protectively over the Captain forcing him to eat and drink.

“This ain’t your job, y’know,” Captain had growled once.

Sgt. Barnes got this stricken expression and nodded. “I know it ain’t, Steve, but she ain’t here to kick your ass for me.”

The Captain’s face had fallen and he’d looked lost. Then he’d shaken his head and snorted. “She would, too.”

Sgt. Barnes had grinned. “Yeah, she would.”

After Sgt. Barnes was killed Falsworth caught a glimpse of the Captain’s sketchbook. There were drawings there of a beautiful woman with a bright, happy smile. There were others where she was scowling, and one where she seemed to be yelling at someone. Falsworth wondered if this was the ‘she’ that would kick the Captain’s arse. He smiled at the thought. Any woman who would be willing to go toe-to-toe with Captain America had to be a firebrand.

The Captain entered the tent and froze when he realized that Falsworth was standing next to his sketchbook.

“It was open,” Falsworth blurted out.

Captain Rogers sighed. “I know,” he admitted. He reached out and his fingers wrapped around the sketchbook protectively.

“Sir, I mean no disrespect, but… who is she?” Falsworth asked.

“My angel,” the Captain replied. He traced a line with his finger. “She was my wife,” he added.

“Oh.” There was no mistaking the past tense in that sentence. He blinked. “They never mention that bit.”

The Captain snorted. “Yeah, they thought that me bein’ single would bring out more women, and by that time Angel was already gone so I didn’t fight ‘em on it.”

“Sir,” Falsworth began tentatively.

“Don’t,” Captain Rogers warned him. “Whatever you’re thinking—it’s probably best you don’t tell me.”

“Yes sir,” Falsworth agreed. “It’s just… she doesn’t like the kind of girl who would be happy about you doing this to yourself.”

The Captain smiled then—a small, private smile meant for someone that was no longer there. “No, she wouldn’t be.”

“Agent Carter,” Falsworth tried.

“Falsworth, I respect the hell out of you. You’re a damn fine soldier,” Captain Rogers growled.

“But?” Falsworth decided that if he was going to push his luck he might as well go all the way.

“Shut up,” Captain Rogers told him with a hard glint in his eye.

“Shutting up, sir,” Falsworth replied.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

In the end, Steve figured that it was just his luck that when he was finally ready to think about moving on… he had to die to save the world. Peggy’s frantic voice blurred in his mind with another far more precious voice. Just as he lost consciousness he heard her exasperated voice.

“Steven Rogers, what am I going to do with you?”

“Angel,” he whispered through blue lips. Then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to follow Captain America's storyline as far as his back story. His mother was a nurse who worked at a sanitarium in the tuberculosis ward, and she eventually succumbed to the disease herself. I didn't want to get rid of Steve's Ma, I really liked her, but that's his back story.


	4. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's returned to her own time. So has Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is angsty.

When he woke up he knew immediately that there was something off… something wrong. The mattress underneath him was ridiculously soft and squishy compared to the army cots he’d been crashing on… when he was lucky enough to get a cot that was. The secure weight of his dog tags was missing. His fingers twitched with the need to touch his neck, to see if they were there, but he resisted.

Finally, he focused on the sound coming from radio, and panic set in. He knew that game; he’d gone to see it with Bucky and his Angel in the summer of ’41. Fear overwhelmed him—where was he? Was this a Hydra plot? In a blind panic he bolted from the room.

They found him a lot quicker than he’d been hoping, and they dragged him back to S.H.I.E.L.D. As a conciliatory gesture they gave him his compass with Peggy’s picture in the lid. He glanced at it and felt a pang of grief for the woman he used to know, but as nice as the compass was it wasn’t what he wanted—what he needed.

“Where are my dog tags,” he’d growled at the man who introduced himself as Nick Fury.

Fury frowned at him. “You don’t need those anymore.”

“The hell I don’t,” Steve bellowed. “Bring me my fucking dog tags!”

He’d refused to do anything they wanted until they’d brought them to him. A sigh of relief escaped him when a slender woman with brilliant red hair entered the room and dropped his dog tags on the table in front of him. The white gold of his wedding band gleamed at him from the chain almost hidden between the two tags. He looped the chain over his neck and automatically kissed the ring before tucking it under his shirt.

“You were married,” the redhead murmured thoughtfully. She turned to Fury. “It doesn’t mention that in any of his paperwork.”

“She was… gone… before I started the program,” Steve muttered. His jaw tightened and a muscle ticked in his jaw.

Fury waved hand dismissively. “Let’s leave the Captain’s private business alone. We have other things to talk about.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

Just in case anyone was ever curious falling out of the sky did not get better the second time around. Darcy whimpered helplessly and shifted her weight.

“Darcy!” Jane was crying her name and clutching at her tearfully. “Thank god! I thought… I thought I’d lost you forever.”

Darcy pulled back to look at Jane’s tear-streaked face. “What happened?”

It turned out that in her space and time Darcy had only been gone for about three weeks. Darcy tried to process that, but it was difficult. She put her head in her hands and took deep, shuddering breaths. Only three weeks. She gasped helplessly for air, and wondered if this was what an asthma attack felt like for Steve. _Steve_. In three weeks, she’d managed to fall out of the sky, fall in love, get married and then lose it all. She started to cry, but Jane became distracted by the light shining on her left hand.

“Whoa!” Jane snatched at her hand and pulled it toward her. “What’s this?”

“Surprise?” Darcy offered in a hoarse voice.

“You got married?” Jane’s voice rose in excitement. “You got married! How long were you there for?”

“A little over three years,” Darcy admitted and a few more tears leaked down her cheeks.

“Where were you?” Jane pressed.

Darcy swallowed. “The past… I think?”

“You think?” Jane echoed with a frown.

“It appeared to be 1940s Brooklyn, but… it might have been an alternate universe? Maybe?” Darcy’s head hurt just thinking about it.

After a long discussion about the possible and probable outcomes of trying to recreate Jane’s experiment they decided that perhaps it was best to just leave things as they were. Jane couldn’t guarantee with any degree of certainty what might happen next time, and she definitely wasn’t willing to risk Darcy’s safety just because she missed her sort-of boyfriend. Jane reluctantly gave up trying to find a way to contact Thor, and sank into a deep funk.

Unfortunately, Darcy was right there with her, and in no mood to be the cheerful, perky one. Every morning when she woke up there was that brief, tiny moment when she thought she was in Brooklyn in a tiny apartment, and the sounds in the bathroom were Steve taking a quick shower and shaving before work. Then she would realize that the smells were all wrong and that she wasn’t there anymore. She had returned home. The only problem with all of that was that here didn’t feel like home anymore. Home was with Steve, and she would never have that again.

Out of the blue they had received the most amazing offer, and Jane had hustled Darcy off to Norway. It wasn’t until they were taking a much needed lunch break and catching up on the news that they realized that some major shit was going down back in the States. Both women had stared at the television in horror as they watched Thor, Jane’s-Intergalactic-Boo Thor, fight aliens from outer space.

“Why didn’t he call? Or something?” Jane whispered. She turned to look at Darcy and her face was twisted in confusion and hurt.

Darcy frowned at the tv. Something about this didn’t seem right. In fact, something seemed awfully suspicious. “This offer was kind of sudden, wasn’t it?” She asked finally.

Jane grimaced. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered.

“I bet it’s S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Darcy grumbled. She scowled at the tv. “I’m _really_ starting to hate top secret, classified government programs.” A blue blur moved to stand next to Thor. “Who’s that?”

Jane squinted at the tv. “Huh. It looks kind of like Captain America.” Then she laughed and shook her head. “But it couldn’t possibly be him.”

“Who?” Darcy frowned.

“Big hero that died in WWII. My dad loved him. He collected all kinds of memorabilia, and everything,” Jane explained. She frowned at Darcy. “Didn’t you study him in school?”

Darcy snorted. “We barely covered George Washington and the Declaration of Independence. I still can’t remember which amendment grants me the right to vote.”

“The 19th,” Jane supplied immediately. She frowned at Darcy. “But I thought everybody knew about Captain America.”

Darcy shrugged helplessly. “Sorry? History really wasn’t my thing.”

Jane frowned. “But… aren’t you a political science major?”

Darcy arched a brow at her friend. “I study governments and political systems—not anecdotes from WWII.”

“Captain America was hardly an anecdote,” Jane sputtered helplessly. “He was a hero! He gave his life to his country!”

Darcy frowned. “Obviously not if he’s zipping around with Thor. Janey… quite a few people have given their lives to this country. _They_ didn’t get any coverage in my high school history classes either.” She paused and scowled at the tv. “What makes _him_ so special?”

Jane made an offended sort of gasp. “Darcy! He’s _Captain America_!”

“So what?”

 

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

Dark Elves were kind of assholes. That and Jane maybe-dying were making Darcy’s life crazy. She had lost so much… right now Jane was the one constant in Darcy’s life and she wasn’t sure what she would do if she lost Jane.

The dark truth that she hid from everyone was… she wanted her Steven back, but that was never going to happen. The dull ache in her chest never seemed to ease, and she had hoped that time might help with that. Thor and Jane were together and Darcy tried to be happy for them because, well—somebody around here should be getting their happily ever after, damn it.

“We’ve received an offer,” Jane announced with a little bounce and a happy smile.

“We did?” Darcy looked up from the raw data she was organizing and frowned suspiciously. “When did that happen? It wasn’t from S.H.I.E.L.D. was it?” She added with a scowl.

“This morning, and no it wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. Stark Industries has offered us a research grant,” Jane explained.

“Okay…,” Darcy frowned at Jane. “What does that mean exactly?”

“We’re moving to New York.” Jane gave a little twirl. “We’re going to live in Stark Tower with Thor.”

“We?” Darcy blinked. “I get my own room, right? As much as I love you and Thor I don’t want front row seats to the celestial love fest.”

“You’ll have your own apartment,” Jane promised.

Darcy sighed. It didn’t really matter where she lived, and she had no strong attachments to England. “Fine. Let’s move to New York. It can’t be any worse than Norway or living with your mom.”

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

“What about Stephanie in Marketing?” Natasha asked curiously.

“No. I’ve already told you to stop trying to fix me up with dames.” Steve started rubbing his forehead. “Natasha… why are you so interested in my love life?”

“I can’t help it,” Natasha retorted with a shrug. “The secret wife of Captain America… it isn’t mentioned anywhere you know. None of your documents list a wife or any beneficiary aside from Sgt. Barnes. It’s mysterious, and I like solving mysteries.”

“I told you, by the time I had been accepted into the program she was gone. I couldn’t very well list her as a beneficiary, could I? After the serum there was no way I could even wear my ring anymore. If Angel had still been with me I’d have had it resized,” Steve snapped.

Natasha smiled at him. “You know what I find fascinating? You never say that she died, or even that she’s ‘passed’. You always say that she’s ‘gone’. Just now you said she wasn’t with you anymore.”

Steve frowned. “So what?”

“It sounds more like she left you,” Natasha pointed out. “Did she? Leave you, I mean?”

“Stop.” Bucky’s voice was low and he was glaring at Natasha. He spat a phrase in Russian and Natasha blinked at him.

“Angel?” Natasha pronounced the word with a hard ‘g’, and Steve turned to look at his best friend.

“What?” Steve asked.

“He said that I am not allowed to talk about your Angel,” Natasha repeated with a quick glance at Bucky.

“I’d listen to him,” Steve muttered.

 

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

“You look different.”

 

Darcy frowned at Clint over the top of her laptop. “How would you know what I look like?” She demanded. “You only saw me long enough to steal my ipod sev—eral years ago.”

“You look… older? Sadder? I’m not sure, but there’s something different about you,” Clint decided.

Darcy scowled at her keyboard. She _was_ older than she had been by three years… not that anybody but Jane knew that. She was also sadder, but that also wasn’t common knowledge. In fact, Darcy pretty much tried to keep that completely hidden because she didn’t want Jane beating herself up with guilt any more than she already had.

“Go away, Barton,” Darcy sighed. “I have to get this done so that Jane can science her little heart out.”

Clint watched her for a moment. “I’ll go now, if you’ll hang out with me some time,” he offered.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Darcy asked incredulously.

Clint snorted in amusement. “You’re not exactly my style, sweet cheeks,” he informed her.

For whatever reason, Darcy suspected some sort of evil gods, Clint had decided that Darcy needed a ‘friend’. He made her go outside and breathe fresh air. He made her go to the movies and go ice-skating. After several weeks, Darcy had a horrifying realization. She turned and glared at him.

“You have been wrangling me,” she accused him.

Clint shrugged and gave her a shameless smile. “I learned by watching you,” he shot back.

Darcy rolled her eyes at him. “Why?” She asked.

Clint shrugged again. “Dunno,” he admitted. “I hate seeing you look all mopey. I’d rather have you tase people than go around with that sad look in your eyes.”

“I can arrange that,” Darcy promised.

Clint just looked at her.

It would be nice if Darcy had a really good explanation for crawling around in the air vents of Stark Tower with Clint; something believable, yet not too weird. Somehow, Darcy doubted that anyone would believe her if she told them she’d lost a contact. She sighed and tried to shimmy through the vent after Clint.

“Why are we doing this again?” Darcy demanded after she banged her hip for the third time against the vent.

A long-suffering sigh drifted through the vent to her. “Evasive maneuvers,” Clint explained.

“In the air vents?” Darcy couldn’t help the way her voice rose incredulously.

“Well, they won’t be expecting that, will they?” Clint pointed out. “It might buy you some more time until we can get to you.”

“Are you planning on me being a target?” Darcy asked in a subdued voice. She could almost feel Clint shrugging in front of her.

“I plan for everything,” he muttered back.

Darcy sighed and tried to follow Clint as quietly and carefully as possible.

 

/\/\/\/\

 

 

Being here, in this new world, was… difficult. He struggled to make sense of it all. It helped, a little, that _she_ was here. He had remembered the brilliant flash of her red hair in his… dreams. Even when they tried to wipe out everything there were certain things that would not go—that had too strong a grip on his mind. Steve (Friend) was one. That brilliant flash of red (Наташа) was another. There was his ma and sisters—a vague sense of home and love and security. There was Friend-Steve’s ma. Then there was… Friend-Steve’s ангел. He had thought at first that he had dreamed her up, but then he caught sight of one of Steve’s sketchbooks and there she was.

“Who is this?” He asked slowly not daring to trace the lines with his fingers for fear of smearing the charcoal.

“It’s… Darcy,” Steve managed to choke out.

A bright laugh and the smell of chicken pot pie swirled around him. “She was… your angel.”

Steve nodded and gave a watery laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed. “God, Bucky, it’s been five years and it’s still so hard.”

“Longer,” he contradicted Friend-Steve. He eyed him thoughtfully. “74 years.”

Steve snorted and punched Bucky in the arm. “I guess so, yeah.” Then he shook his head. “It’s so hard to believe that so much time has passed. It doesn’t _feel_ like it.”

He nodded. “It is hard for me, as well. Sometimes I am not sure if my dreams are real or not, and everyone that could tell me if they are or aren’t is dead except for you.” He glanced at Steve’s notebook again. “I am glad that she was real.” He frowned as another memory teased him. “She was good for you.”

“She kept me on my toes,” Steve agreed with a bittersweet smile for his notebook.

“I will explain to Natasha,” he decided. “She will not bother you again.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Steve sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m just not ready… I don’t know if I ever will be.”

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“You must leave Steve alone,” Bucky muttered.

“Why, Яша?” Natasha asked with studied casualness that didn’t fool him at all, especially since he had taught it to her.

“His Angel,” Bucky said slowly, frowning as he tried in vain to remember the laughing woman that fluttered on the edge of his senses. “They were… made for one another. Any woman you find will never measure up to what he had.”

“What was she like?” Natasha asked. Her eyes were watching him, studying him.

“She was beautiful,” he muttered, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to concentrate. “She was smart. She’d yell at Steve to take better care of himself.”

“Okay.” Natasha looked at him with doubt and skepticism in her eyes.

Bucky frowned at his hands, which were clenched into fists on his knees.

“You don’t understand,” he growled. “Have you ever seen pictures of Steve from before?”

 

Natasha nodded silently.

 

“No one ever looked twice at him, and if they did it was with pity. Steve _hated_ that—hated their pity and their compassion. Dames always told him no. She… she didn’t. She saw past the outside to who he was on the inside, and she loved him. She loved him so much, and he loved her,” he broke off and swallowed. “He died inside when she left. He was never the same again.”

 

“So she did leave,” Natasha murmured.

 

Bucky turned to glare at her. “It wasn’t her fault,” he muttered. “She didn’t want to go.”

 

Natasha frowned. This was sounding more and more odd. “Why did she leave then?”

 

“She didn’t… she was taken,” Bucky amended.

 

Natasha’s brows rose in surprise. “Taken?”

 

Bucky’s lips twisted. “It ain’t my story to tell,” he growled. “Just… stop pushing at him. The more you push, the more he’ll dig in his heels. He’s always been that way.”

 

“Okay,” Natasha murmured.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“You’re pouting again,” Clint pointed out. “Don’t make me bring you puppies and kittens.”

 

“I am not pouting,” Darcy scoffed.

 

Clint rolled his eyes at her. “It’s a just a party, Darcy. How bad could it be?”

 

Darcy’s eyes widened and she stared at him. “You just jinxed it,” she told him solemnly. “It’s going to be Dark Elves again. Or aliens or something. I am so telling Fury that this is all your fault.”

 

Clint glared at her. “I’m sure he’ll believe you,” he muttered bitterly.

 

“What kind of party is it,” Darcy asked in a pathetic attempt to change the subject.

 

“Some kind of 1940s themed thing in honor of Captain America,” Clint said with a grimace.

 

The change was so immediate that it took Clint a moment to realize that he’d just said the wrong thing. Darcy had frozen—he wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.

 

“No,” Darcy said flatly.

 

“Come on, Darcy. It’s just a party. It’s no big deal,” Clint protested.

 

If there was one constant in the universe it was Tony Stark’s dedication to a good party. If he had decided on some kind of 1940s theme he was going to go all out. Darcy was willing to bet that he would hire an actual swing band and get them to play music from the era. She would have to walk into a room where everyone and everything would remind her of Steve—of what she couldn’t have. The very thought of it made her chest constrict painfully.

 

“Absolutely not,” she snapped. Frantically, she tried to think of a decent excuse. “I… I hate the big band music. Can’t stand it. And those clothes? Ridiculous.”

 

“Yeah, but, it’s for Captain America,” Clint reminded her.

 

“Who the fuck cares?” Darcy snarled. “I’m not going!”

 

Clint stared at her for several long minutes. She was practically gasping for air and there was a feral look in her eyes that he recognized. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

 

“Okay, so we’re not going,” he soothed her.

 

“What?” Darcy blinked at him in confusion. “You can go if you want to—I won’t stop you.”

 

Clint shrugged. “Phil’s out of town. There’s no point in dressing up for him if he can’t see it.” He tugged on a lock of her hair. “You and I can go grab a bite to eat and _not_ go to the party of the century.”

 

Darcy tackle-hugged him. “You’re the best,” she whispered in his ear.

 

Later, Clint went to Pepper who was nominally in charge of the Captain America birthday party. She looked up from her computer and smiled, waving him into her office.

 

“What’s up, Clint?” She asked.

 

“Count Darcy and me out,” he said as casually as he could.

 

Pepper frowned. “Out of what?”

 

“The Captain America shindig,” he explained.

 

“Tony’s going to want to know why,” Pepper said with a sigh.

 

Clint shrugged. “Tell him whatever you want to. I don’t know… tell him she can’t stand swing music.”

 

Pepper snorted. “He’s not going to take that as a valid excuse.”

 

“I don’t really care what Tony thinks,” Clint retorted. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Pepper, I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

“I know, Clint.” Pepper smiled at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle Tony.”

 

“I know you will,” Clint replied. He paused for a moment in front of her desk. “Thank you.”

 

“Of course.”


	5. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's lost is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being almost 8000 words, so it's going to be two chapters. This is 'part 1' of the reunion. Hopefully I'll have 'part 2' up later today, or tomorrow at the latest.

The night of the colossal themed party for Captain America, Clint took Darcy out for pizza.

“Why are we in the air vents? Again?” Darcy hissed as she tried to follow Clint.

“Just in case.” Clint’s answer drifted back.

“In case of what?” Darcy demanded.

“Tony,” Clint tossed back over his shoulder.

Darcy scowled at the air vent. If Tony thought he could drag her kicking and screaming to this party, then he was a few wrenches short of a set. She growled under her breath and followed Clint.

“Your aim is terrible,” Clint complained when they played darts. “I’m getting you a knife set, and you’re going to learn how to throw them properly.”

Darcy snorted. “Why on earth do I need to learn how to throw knives?”

Clint scowled at her.

“Is this a contingency thing?” Darcy demanded.

“Maybe.”

“What kind of scenario have you dreamed up that involves me hiding in air vents and throwing knives at people?” Darcy asked incredulously.

“Shut up and drink your beer,” Clint muttered.

Darcy drank her beer.

All in all, it was a relaxed night. If Darcy drank a bit more than she normally would have done, Clint didn’t mention it. He also didn’t mention the fact that he had to help her into her room and tuck her into her bed. Darcy decided that despite the fact that Clint spent an inordinate amount of time in the air ducts of Stark Tower and seemed to have a strange fascination with knives, he was a good friend.

Perhaps it was naïve of Darcy to assume that was that. It helped that a week went by with no snide comments, no cutting remarks, or verbal jabs from certain people who might or might not be Tony Stark. One week of calm lulled Darcy into a false sense of security.

Monday morning she shuffled blearily into Jane’s lab, moving unerringly toward the coffeemaker. Cup in hand, she breathed deeply before taking her first sip. There was music playing, which was fairly common, and Darcy hummed absently along as she started going through the memos and paperwork in her inbox. When a new song came on she froze.

 

 __  
“You were meant for me  
I was meant for you!  
Nature patterned you, an' when she was done  
you were all the sweet things rolled in one!

 _You're like a plaintive melody_  
that never lets me free  
I'm content, the angels must have sent you  
and they meant you just for me!”

 

_“This is our song, doll,” Steve murmured against her cheek as they danced together._

_Darcy had pulled back and rolled her eyes at him. “Why this one?”_

_“Because the angels sent you to me,” he replied with a smirk._

_“Be careful you don’t trip over that ego, Rogers,” she had retorted._

_Steve had laughed at her and pulled her back into his arms._

_“It’s not ego, if it’s true,” he teased her._

“Darcy?”

She could hear Jane’s voice distantly, but she was focusing on not falling apart. She could hear herself gasping for air, her fingernails biting into her palms. _Tony Stark was going to die_. She jumped up from her chair and whirled to stare at Jane.

“I’m going to kill him,” she snarled furiously.

Jane blinked. “Who?”

“Tony fucking Stark.” Darcy turned and marched to the door of Jane’s lab.

“Darcy? What’s going on?” Jane was staring at her in confusion.

Darcy fought for control, breathing in and out slowly.

“I told you that… _it_ was like here, right?” She said finally.

Understanding flashed in Jane’s eyes and she nodded. “But you said that it was a kind of 1940s New York… oh.” Jane’s eyes grew wide and she looked at Darcy with understanding. “This music… it reminds you of _him_ , doesn’t it?”

They had never really talked about Darcy’s time away; Darcy because it was too painful, and Jane because she felt guilty. Jane knew enough. She knew that there were times when Darcy would come to work with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and dark circles under them to match, and Jane knew that she’d been dreaming of _him_. Of course Darcy missed her husband. Who wouldn’t? When she had been apart from Thor, she had been in the same condition.

Indignation filled Jane. How _dare_ Tony Stark upset Darcy like this? Who the hell did he think he was?

“I’ll come with you,” Jane said firmly.

“Fine.” Darcy turned and marched from the lab with Jane hot on her heels.

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

It was difficult to get the Winter Soldier into his lab, but Tony had finally managed it. For whatever reason, playing big band music seemed to calm him down. Amazingly enough, so far he had avoided any ‘music soothes the savage beast’ jokes, but that was mostly because both Natasha and Capsicle had their arms crossed over their chests and were glaring at him from across the room. He was carefully examining Sgt. Barnes’ arm, cleaning the machinery as he went.

“You bastard!”

Tony turned in surprise. In the doorway to his lab was an absolutely furious Darcy Lewis. Her chest was heaving, and there were tear tracks on her cheeks. Guilt gnawed at Tony. When Pepper had given him that lame excuse about Darcy not liking swing music he’d figured it would be funny to play it in Jane’s lab, too. He hadn’t expected an emotionally distraught lab assistant. He didn’t do _feelings_ all that well.

“Did you think this was fucking _funny_?” Her voice rose to an almost hysterical edge and she advanced on him with her hands clenched into fists.

Tony raised his hands defensively in front of him. “Whoa, Lewis,” he sputtered. “This wasn’t for you at all. It was for Sgt. Barnes here.”

“What?” Darcy blinked and turned to stare at the Winter Soldier. Her eyes widened almost comically. “Bucky?” She whispered.

The Winter Soldier stared at her for several long, unnerving minutes. “Darcy,” he said at last. “I remember you.”

“Bucky… how did you get here?” She demanded.

“Angel?” The Captain blurted out.

Darcy turned toward him and frowned. Then she turned back to Tony and the look in her eyes was murderous. The crack of her palm against his face echoed in the sudden silence of his lab.

“You fucking asshole,” she breathed at him. “How _dare_ you?”

“Angel?” The Captain tried again, and his voice broke. “Please, look at me.”

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

Against her will, Darcy turned to face the man who kept calling her Angel. She scowled at him, furious at Tony for the cruelest practical joke she had ever heard of. The man in front of her was huge, he towered over her. His shoulders were so broad they filled her vision. She looked up, and up until she could glare into achingly familiar blue eyes. _Those eyes_. She sucked in a breath, staring into those eyes.

“Steve?” She took a step back from him, and flinched at the hurt that flickered across his face. “What _happened_ to you?” She whispered.

“I joined the Army,” Steve told her with a wry smile.

Bucky snorted behind her. She turned to frown at him, and then looked back up at Steve.

“ _This_ was your special project?” She demanded.

Steve blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he admitted.

Darcy stared at him. This… this was not the man that she dreamed of, the man that she ached for when she woke up in the middle of the night sobbing. This was someone’s idea of the ‘perfect’ man. Darcy had never wanted perfect — she had wanted Steve. They had complemented one another perfectly, each of them contributing to their relationship. Well, that and the sex. The sex had been amazing. But this golden god of a man, what could she offer him? Could she complement both his strengths and his weaknesses, just as she had with _her_ Steve?

She shook her head.

“No.” It was more of a plea than a definitive statement.

The hurt on Steve’s face grew more pronounced.

“Angel…,” he tried again.

Darcy held up a hand. “I don’t understand. How can you be here?” She paled and took another step back. “How _long_ have you been here?”

“Whoa, pump the brakes.” Tony inserted himself between the two of them, his eyes darting from one face to the other. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Darcy married Captain America,” Jane said, her eyes focused on her friend.

Darcy turned to glare at Jane. “I did not!”

“You married the Capsicle?” Tony demanded.

“Darcy married Captain America,” Jane repeated with a dazed look in her eyes.

“Stop saying that,” Darcy snapped. “I did not!”

“You kind of did, Darcy,” Bucky added.

“No.” She shook her head and glared at all of them. “No, I married Steve Rogers.” Then she turned to Tony and pointed a finger at him. “Just… stop. You’re not helping.”

Steve cleared his throat, and Darcy looked up at him.

“The special project, they called me Captain America,” he explained.

“Captain America,” Darcy muttered. She shook her head. “No. I just… no.”

“Doll, wait,” Steve begged, and he grabbed her hand. He looked down in surprise at it and then looked up at her with a hopeful expression that was so familiar it made her chest ache. “You still wear your rings?”

“Of course,” she managed to croak out.

He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a set of dog tags. Gleaming next to them was Steve’s wedding band.

“It didn’t fit, afterwards,” he tried to explain, stumbling over his words in his haste. “You were already gone, but I couldn’t, so I wore it.”

With tentative fingers she reached out and touched the ring, her skin brushing against his. He shivered next to her, and when she looked up at him there was a yearning expression on his face that she remembered well.

“It’s you,” she whispered.

He made a choking-laughing noise that sounded almost halfway toward a sob. “It’s me, Angel.”

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

The night of Tony Stark’s party had been surreal for Steve and for Bucky. It was somebody’s idea of what the 1940s had been like, but it wasn’t even close to what Steve and Bucky knew. They had grown up during the Depression, and no one they knew dressed the way these people were, or put out a spread like Tony put out.

 

Most parties they had been invited to when they had been younger offered homemade donuts and cider, or homemade cake and some kind of punch. No one had ever had lobster, caviar, or steak. He glared at the ice sculpture of himself and took a sip of his drink.

“What are you wearing?” Steve asked when Tony approached him with some kind of emphasized swagger.

“A zoot suit,” Tony informed him haughtily.

“Right.” Steve looked out over the crowd and frowned. “I remember those.”

The people milling around were wearing exaggerated versions of the clothes he remembered. A lot of the women had much fuller skirts than any of the women he had known had ever worn. Then again, the dresses were much fancier, and made of materials that his ma would never have chosen because they would have been ruined and stained far too easily.

Relief filled Steve when Natasha indicated that he’d been at the party long enough that he could leave without giving offense.

“You barely looked at any of the women,” Natasha observed in a quiet voice that Steve assumed was meant to be soothing.

“None of them were his angel,” Bucky explained for him. He tugged at his wrists. “We can take this off now, right?”

“Yes,” Natasha murmured.

It had been Natasha’s idea to let Tony look at Bucky’s arm. A conciliatory gesture, she had called it.

“He knows you hated his party,” Natasha had explained. “It’s a personal affront to him… a failure.”

“Tony doesn’t like failure,” Steve said, looking over at Bucky.

“If you and Natasha will stay with me…” Bucky appeared to be nervous, but determined.

“Every second, Buck,” Steve promised.

Naturally, Tony being the asshole that he was, he had to play swing music while they were there. The only thing that had stopped Steve from punching Tony was the fact that it did seems to make Bucky relax. So Steve dealt with the music for Buck’s sake.

Then _their_ song came on. Steve stiffened, and he could feel Natasha’s gaze sliding toward him.

“Are you all right?” She murmured so softly that he doubted Tony could hear it.

“Fine,” he bit out.

“You bastard!”

Steve’s world tilted at that point. _Angel_. His angel wearing an outfit that he’d seen countless other women wear in this time, but seemed so out of place on her. He blinked when she slapped Tony Stark, and tried to focus on what they were saying. It was too good to be true—that she was here, now.

“Angel,” he called to her, not fully believing that this was happening and that she was here.

The fury in her eyes hurt something deep inside of him, but the lack of recognition was worse. She looked right through him; the way she’d done to countless other guys that weren’t him. Angel had never looked at Steve like that before, and it hurt to breathe. Then recognition had flared in her eyes and he could breathe again.

“Steve?” The confusion on her face killed him. As did the once over and the frowning, “What _happened_ to you?”

It had taken everything in him not to just grab her and run, or kiss her until they both couldn’t see straight. When he’d grabbed her hand and felt her rings cutting into his fingers, he’d wanted to do a victory dance. If she was still wearing her rings then she hadn’t forgotten, and she hadn’t given up. She was still his girl.

 _It’s you_ were now the sweetest words he’d ever heard. He wanted to laugh and to cry all at once. Angel was looking at him with longing and hope…. And love.

“It’s me, Angel,” he affirmed.

He hadn’t been prepared to be hit with the full force of his Angel. She was crying and laughing and trying to climb him all at once. He hoisted her up, his hands cupping her ass to grant her greater access. Then she took his head in her hands and began kissing him. It was like no kiss he’d ever had before. There was anger and pain and fierceness in that kiss. Darcy bit his lip so hard he was sure that she must have drawn blood, but then she was sucking on his lower lip and he didn’t care anymore.

Being Captain America had its advantages. He was able to cup her ass in one hand, and slide the other up into her hair, holding her head right where he wanted it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and kept kissing him.

Someone was clearing their throat, loudly.

Darcy pulled back from his lips, panting. She started to tug on his shirt.

“Too many clothes,” she muttered at him. “I need you naked now.”

“This is my lab,” Tony squawked indignantly. “You can’t deflower the Capsicle in my lab!”

Darcy stopped tugging at Steve’s shirt to turn and frown at Tony. “What the hell ever gave you the idea that Steve was a virgin?”

Steve could feel the heat rise up his neck and turn his face red. Tony pointed at him.

“That! That right there!” Tony said with a triumphant smirk.

“That’s called being a gentleman, asshole. You should try it sometime,” Darcy snapped.

Bucky stood next to Tony with a frown. He looked up at Steve. “I don’t remember her cursing so much.”

“I didn’t,” Darcy replied. She looked down at Steve. “I told you I was no Angel.”

Darcy’s hair was in wild disarray from Steve’s fingers, her pupils were blown wide with lust, and her normally full lips were swollen with kisses. Steve swallowed hard.

“You look like an angel to me,” he whispered to her and she blushed.

“Still in my lab,” Tony protested loudly.

“Where do you live?” Darcy demanded.

Steve blinked and tried to think. “35th floor. Why?”

Darcy smirked at him. “I’m on the 70th floor. My room’s closer.”

“70th floor,” Steve repeated. He turned with Darcy still in his arms and started walking to the door.

“Darcy!” Jane called. “Are you… never mind, of course you are. I’ll bring food later and leave it outside your door.”

“Best friend ever!” Darcy called back.

Steve paused at that and turned around. “Bucky?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky said and glanced at Natasha who nodded. “Natasha will stay with me.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asked. Part of him wanted to turn and run with his angel in his arms, but the other part had to know that Bucky was okay with being abandoned in Tony’s lab.

“I will make sure that Tony behaves himself,” Natasha assured him. “And if he does not… I will call Pepper.”

Tony glared at Natasha. “That is so underhanded and devious,” he muttered.

Natasha merely lifted an eyebrow at him as though to say _did you expect anything else?_

Finally, _finally_ , they left Tony’s lab. Steve didn’t run to the elevators, but he moved very, very quickly.

“You can put me down, you know,” Darcy told him once the doors closed. “Trust me, Rogers, I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve’s grip tightened on her, and she sighed.

“It’s taking too long,” he muttered. He looked down at her and she looked up at him with dark, sultry eyes that promised things that he’d only been able to dream about for far too long.

“You could always press the emergency stop and we could have sex right here,” she purred in his ear right before she licked it.

Steve groaned as those images filled his mind.

“Then again, we’d probably have the entire building present when we stumbled out, and that would be ten kinds of embarrassing,” Darcy added.

By the time they made it to Darcy’s apartment, she had managed to get him out of the button down shirt (which they’d left in the elevator), and had slid her hands under his undershirt. Steve was focusing on breathing and walking, and had to trust Darcy to stop him when they made it to her place.

“Stop,” she commanded. “It’s right here.”

She’d wiggled out of his arms to punch in her code and put her thumb on the thumbprint pad, and Steve’s arms felt cold and empty. Then she’d grabbed his hands and pulled him into her apartment, shutting the door with her foot.

“Naked. Now,” she ordered, pulling his undershirt over his head. She took a step back and stared at him for a moment.

“Better or worse?” He asked when she didn’t say anything.

She shook her head. “Different,” she countered. “But… it’s still you.”

“Yeah.” His hands went to his belt and her eyes followed his fingers. He smirked at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be stripping too, Angel?”

She rolled her eyes at him and pulled her sweater over her head easily. Dark blue lace covered her breasts, but barely. The creamy swell of her breast rose above the lace, taunting him. Steve stared.

“You never wore anything like that before,” he muttered.

Darcy smiled at him. “Lingerie has come a long way.”

Then she shimmied out of her jeans, and Steve saw that she had underthings to match. A scrap of blue lace that hardly covered anything wrapped around her hips. Steve’s mouth went dry. His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, but he somehow managed to get it undone and he slid his khakis down, neatly stepping out of them. For some reason he couldn’t name, he kept his boxers on even though it was pretty obvious that he was excited to be this close to his angel again. Darcy's eyes went straight to his groin and widened. She looked up at him, and then down again, and then up one more time.

“You were fine before,” she protested almost to herself.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “You… you look the same. You look just how I remembered you, how I’ve drawn you, how I’ve dreamed of you. I’m… I’m sorry that I don’t. Angel, you don’t know how sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Darcy snapped. She stepped up close to him, so close he could feel her body heat, and glared up at him. “Don’t you ever feel like you aren’t good enough.” Then she shook her head and tears sparkled on her lashes. “You’re still you. You’re still my Steve, and that’s all that I’ve ever wanted.”

Darcy took his hand, and led him into her bedroom. She pushed him down on the bed and straddled his lap.

“I’ve dreamed about you,” she admitted. She looked down at the broad expanse of muscle under her fingers. “Maybe you didn’t look exactly like this, but it was you.”

She leaned down and pressed kisses along his jaw, nibbled her way down his throat and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his pulse point. Steve groaned helplessly as Angel worked her way down her chest. She paused to lick one of his nipples and blow on it. Darcy continued down his torso pressing open-mouthed kisses on his stomach. She paused, hovering at the waist band of his boxers to look up at him through her lashes with a naughty smile on her lips. He remembered that look and swallowed.

“Angel,” he warned her. “Remember, whatever you do to me, I’m gonna do to you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m counting on it,” she cooed up at him. Her fingers slid under the waistband and pulled his boxers off in one fluid motion.

“Darcy, damnit,” Steve panted as she curled her fingers around him. “I can’t… Angel, I’m going to…”

“Counting on that, too,” Darcy murmured right before she wrapped her lips around his cock.

Stars exploded behind Steve’s eyes. The warm, wet heat of Darcy’s lips and the wicked glide of her tongue were things that he’d only dreamed about for so long. His fingers fisted in her bed sheets, and he whimpered as she deliberately did every single last thing that she knew would drive him crazy.

“Darcy,” he begged.

In reply, her fingers stroked and teased, and her tongue swirled. He groaned and his hips bucked. His fingers tightened almost painfully on the sheets, as she breathed through her nose and slid even further down him than he had thought would be possible. With a shout, he let go of the bed sheets and his control, and shook under Darcy’s hands and mouth. Finally, she pulled off of him with an obscenely wet pop and smirked at him with reddened, swollen lips. He groaned again at the look of smug triumph on her face and pulled her up so that he could kiss her.

“You’re going to kill me, doll,” he growled against her lips.

“Not until I’m done with you,” she taunted him.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha understand the basics of who, but has trouble with the how.

The look in Steve’s eyes was almost dangerous. His eyes darkened, and he slowly licked his lips. Darcy shivered at the naked need on his face. His thumbs stroked over her cheekbones, and then brushed over her lips.

“Dreamed about this, Angel,” he growled at her before he leaned down to kiss her hard.

He bit and nipped at her lips and she bit and licked back.

“Me too,” she gasped as his lips moved to her throat.

As he began to touch her, her brain kept comparing _then_ to _now_ , but it all blurred together. Yes, his hands were much bigger than they had been, but the way he touched her was all Steve. Gently, almost delicately, his fingers stroked and caressed. She tugged on his hair, pulling his eyes up to hers.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she repeated.

Darcy stared at him, trying to get him to believe her. Steve’s fingers tightened on her hips convulsively, and his pupils dilated. He lowered his head to take a nipple in his mouth, her fingers tugged once more and she moaned helplessly. She could feel him smirk against her breast, and she didn’t even feel the urge to smack him on the shoulder.

Slowly, inch by tortuous inch, Steve made his way down her chest and belly and lower, following the same path she’d taken down his torso earlier. His fingers caressed her hips as he slid blue lace down her thighs. The ease with which he slipped her legs over his shoulders made her pant just a little bit. He smirked at her before he licked a slow stripe from her perineum to her clit.

“So wet,” he whispered into the soft skin of her inner thigh.

“Steve,” she keened.

“I’m just getting started, Angel,” he growled at her before he focused all his attention on her.

Steve’s tongue was everywhere at once. Carefully placed licks and nibbles had Darcy babbling, and when he wrapped his lips around her clit and _sucked_ , her toes curled and her back bowed off the bed.

“Now,” she demanded. “Right now.”

Steve looked up at her innocently. “But I’m busy here.”

“Steve Rogers, I swear by all that’s holy if you don’t get up here right now…” she trailed off and just glared at him.

A wicked grin and then Steve was hovering over her. “Yes ma’am?”

She growled and wrapped her legs around his hips, rubbing herself against the hard, hot length of him. Steve’s eyes crossed and he gave a little growl of his own. His hands lifted her hips easily and he entered her smoothly. They moaned together at how right, how perfect, being joined together again felt. Steve pressed his forehead to Darcy’s and just stared into her eyes.

“This is real, right?” he whispered with a vulnerable look on his face.

Darcy blinked back tears. “It had damn well better be,” she whispered back.

“I missed you so much, Angel,” Steve murmured and kissed her gently.

“I missed you, too,” Darcy replied when he pulled back. Her hands slid up into his hair, cupping the back of his head.

With a flex of his hips, Steve began to move. Darcy’s legs tightened around him and she shifted her hips, moving to meet him, thrust for thrust. Her fingers spread over his shoulders and she used that to give herself leverage. Steve didn’t give her any space to catch her breath, changing the angle of his thrusts every time so that Darcy was a quivering, moaning mess.

“More,” she begged when she was able to speak.

“I can do this all day,” he told her with a wicked smirk that was all Steve. He rotated his hips in a little swivel that made her eyes roll back in her head.

“Steve,” she whimpered as everything contracted to the way he felt inside her.

“I’ve got you, Angel,” he murmured into her throat. “Just let go.”

With a cry she did just that. She could feel her fingernails digging into Steve’s shoulders as she screamed his name. Wave after wave crashed over her, and she shook with the force of it. White filled her vision, and she clung to Steve who was twitching above her, chanting her name over and over again.

He shifted to the side, pulling Darcy so that she was sprawled over his chest. When she could form coherent sentences again, she opened her eyes and turned to look at him. He was lying there quietly, breathing slowly in and out with his eyes closed. Darcy frowned at him. She poked in the chest.

“Steve?”

“Mmph.” He batted at her hand and groaned. Sleepy blue eyes blinked at her. “Angel?”

Darcy grinned at him. “Yes.”

“Sleep?” He looked up at her with a hopeful expression.

“You go ahead and sleep,” Darcy purred at him. “I’ll go take a shower.”

Steve’s eyes snapped open. “Shower?”

“Mhmm. And maybe food if Janey loves me, which I know she does,” Darcy added.

“Food?”

Round Two took place in the shower, with Steve holding Darcy up against the wall as he pounded into her. Maybe this Captain America thing had one or two benefits, she decided as she clung to him.

They sat in the middle of Darcy’s bed, naked, with food spread out between them. Jane had apparently erred on the side of caution and had decided that feeding Steve would be similar to feeding Thor. There were huge portions of at least three or four different cuisines.

“Ooh, pad thai,” Darcy crowed happily and grabbed a pair of chopsticks from inside the bag.

“What happens now, Angel?” Steve asked cautiously.

Darcy paused, noodles hanging out of her mouth, to frown at Steve. She slurped noisily and grabbed a napkin to wipe her mouth.

“What do you mean, what happens now?” She countered.

“I’m still Captain America,” he reminded her. “I mean, I’m Steve Rogers, too, but I’ve got obligations that I’ve sworn to fulfill.”

“You made vows to me as well,” Darcy retorted.

Steve flinched. “I know I did, but…”

Darcy sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Look, Steve, we’ve already had this fight. I know who you are. Am I happy that you want to fling yourself headlong into battle on a regular basis? No, not really, but that’s who you are.”

Steve relaxed next to her, tension leaving his shoulders and his face. He gave her a happy smile and turned his attention back to his food. Darcy watched with fascination as Steve demolished the food that Jane had left for them. Maybe she hadn’t been too far off in her estimation.

Round Three had been a pleasant surprise. This was a change that Darcy heartily approved of, or it would be when she was capable of talking once again. Cuddling in her bed with Steve wrapped around her was just as nice as the sex, Darcy decided. Having him here, being able to touch him again was enough to keep a goofy smile on her face all by itself.

Darcy wasn’t the only one who liked the cuddling—not if Steve’s happy smile and the way he snuggled his face into her neck was any indication. His fingers stroked her back lazily, and every now and then he would place a soft kiss on her shoulder. Darcy sighed. She hadn’t felt this loved, this worshipped, in years… not that she’d really put herself in a position to _be_ worshipped.

Round Four was slow and soft and sweet. The two of them moved together lazily, treasuring every sigh and every touch. When they finally came together, it was a gentle slide over the edge rather than the violent cataclysms of earlier, but to Darcy, it was infinitely precious. _This_ was what she had remembered and missed desperately.

That wasn’t to say that the crazy shower sex hadn’t been one of the hottest things that she’d ever done because it had been. If she could have both, forever, that was fine by her.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“Darcy?”

“Mmph.”

“Angel, we gotta get up.”

Steve’s voice was a low rumble beneath her ear. Darcy’s eyes snapped open and she jerked her head up to stare up at him. There was a bittersweet smile on his lips. They’d both reacted the same way the last couple of mornings; starting awake, not really daring to believe that the other was really, truly there. Darcy’s fingers were already mapping his arms, shoulders, and chest—her hand resting over his steady heartbeat.

“I’m here, Angel,” he promised her. He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “But if we don’t shower and leave these rooms sometime today _somebody_ is going to come in here.”

“Who?” She demanded with a scowl.

Steve shrugged. “Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine. It could be any one of them. It could be your friend that left us food. It could be Buck and Natasha. It could even be Tony.”

Darcy’s nose wrinkled at that. “Only if he wants a good punch to the nose,” she muttered. “Wait… Steve, how are you here? How long have you been here? And Bucky? What happened to Bucky?”

All the air left Steve’s lungs at that. He stared at his hands.

“Steve?” Darcy’s voice rose.

“I failed him,” Steve muttered.

He could feel Darcy glaring at his back, and his shoulders hunched protectively. She would hate him for this—she had always seen Bucky as Steve’s sort-of brother, and after they’d gotten married she had even referred to him as her brother-in-law when she spoke to other people.

“You would never,” Darcy snapped. “What happened?”

Slowly, word by painful word, Steve explained everything that had happened. Everything that he knew about, anyway.

“Oh my god,” Darcy whispered.

Then she smacked him on the arm as hard as she could. Steve deserved that, he knew he did.

“It isn’t your fault, you idiot!” Darcy bellowed at him.

Blinking, Steve looked up to see an avenging angel filled with divine fury… and all of it was directed his way.

“Have you been blaming yourself for this?” She demanded, her voice barely a hiss she was so angry.

“But…”

“Oh my god, you have!” Her voice rose to a shriek and she whomped him on the arm again. “I can’t leave you alone, can I? Not everything is your fucking fault, Rogers!”

“But…,” Steve tried again, but this time Darcy just screamed in rage. He held up both of his hands. “Not my fault?”

“No,” she breathed at him. “But these… these HYDRA people… are they still around?”

The look on his angel’s face did not bode well for HYDRA.       

“Um…”

It took a little while longer to explain about HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD, and then a brief digression while Darcy ranted about SHIELD and how she had known they were evil, the thieving iPod bastards. She was breathing hard and her hands were clenched at her sides.

“How bad is he?” She asked finally.

“He’s got good days and bad days,” Steve admitted. He rubbed a hand over his face. “His memory is shot to hell.”

“He said he remembered me,” she murmured almost to herself.

“He has these dreams. He can’t remember a lot of them, but he dreamed about you, I guess. Then he saw some of my scribbles, and he… he was happy that you were real,” Steve explained, his voice breaking slightly at the end.

“I’m very real,” Darcy assured him.

Steve smirked at her. “I know.”

“Shower,” Darcy decided. She frowned at his hopeful face. “Seperately. And then Bucky.”

“If you say so, Angel.” Steve stood, completely naked, and sauntered off slowly toward the shower.

 _Asshole_.

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“Bucky!”

That was the only warning that he had before his arms were filled with exuberant woman. It was Steve’s angel, and she was hugging him tightly around the neck and pressing a smacking kiss into his cheek. He froze, uncertain as to what he should do, and he turned to stare at Steve and Natasha. She pulled back to frown up at him, and he remembered that look, that frown.

“You look like shit! Haven’t you been eating or sleeping?” She demanded.

“Don’t let Steve hear you sweet-talk me like that, doll. He’ll be jealous for sure,” his lips said for him. He paused and blinked in surprise. Steve was staring at him with a hopeful expression, and Natasha looked… bemused.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Steve’s Angel shot back and she winked at him.

That banter… that wink… he remembered them.

_“Doesn’t the army feed you boys at all?” Darcy had asked in an exasperated voice._

_“They do, but it ain’t nearly as good as your cookin’, Darcy,” Bucky had told her as he worked on inhaling his third piece of pie._

_“Be careful,” Darcy had warned him with a scowl. “I had to beg sugar and flour from our neighbors to make that pie.”_

_Bucky chewed a little slower, savoring the taste. Steve was watching him with a mixture of pride and longing, and Bucky suppressed a sigh._

_“You shouldn’t have wasted your rations on me, doll,” Bucky told her once he had swallowed._

_Darcy snorted at him. “We all trade each other. Next month is little Teddy Bixby’s birthday. His mom will come and get some flour and sugar from me to bake his cake. It all works out in the end. We’re taking care of each other here on the homefront, don’t you worry.”_

_“I don’t worry about you. Not with Steve lookin’ after you,” Bucky retorted. He turned and shook a finger at Steve. “You keep an eye on my best girl, punk.”_

_Darcy had laughed at that. “You should be so lucky, James Barnes. I’m a happily married woman, thank you very much.”_

“Darcy,” he said slowly. “Steve’s angel.”

She nodded at him with a bright, happy smile. He felt a smile curving his lips—a naughty, wicked smirk that he hadn’t had occasion to use in a long, long time.

“My best girl,” he teased her.

Darcy laughed out loud at that, and he could hear Steve’s laughter as well.

“You wish,” she told him with a slightly watery smile. “I’m a happily married woman, thank you very much.”

Bucky glanced at Steve, and the grin on his face was so huge it had to be seen to be believed.

“I think I understand… but how?” Natasha asked once they were settled in the communal kitchen on the 35th floor.

“Understand what?” Darcy asked. She blew carefully on her coffee before taking a large swallow and humming her appreciation.

“You are the wife, the one that Captain Rogers went ballistic over when we took his dog tags,” she murmured.

Bucky blinked. “You took his ring? That was stupid.”

“At the time, we didn’t know that,” Natasha had muttered with a slight frown.

Darcy had turned to stare at Steve. “You went ballistic?”

“He was cursing with great ingenuity and at some length, and then he told Nick Fury that he could fuck himself,” Natasha recited.

Darcy’s eyes widened at that and she stared up at Steve. “You know, if we weren’t already married I would propose to you right now.”

Steve blushed. Darcy turned back to Natasha and eyed her thoughtfully for several long minutes. Then she turned to Bucky and just looked at him. Bucky stared back at her, but after a moment he nodded slightly. Darcy turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged.

“It was when Bifrost was closed,” Darcy explained. “Jane was trying to contact Thor, but we couldn’t get through. She decided that maybe she could create a stable wormhole and she’d be able to communicate with him.”

“Your scientist did it?” Steve interjected with a frown.

Darcy nodded. “Yeah, and we’re not going to yell at her, or be cross with her because if she hadn’t we wouldn’t have had what we had.”

“But,” Steve started to protest.

“One day,” Darcy talked over him loudly. “You said one day was enough. You got 2 years.”

“I was wrong,” he muttered. “It wasn’t enough. I don’t think it will ever be enough.”

Darcy smiled at him and patted his hand. “For that you get brownie points. Now, the wormhole didn’t work out exactly the way Jane planned. I ended up with Sarah Rogers in Brooklyn in 1939.”

“And she was yanked out on June 14th, 1943,” Steve muttered.

“Almost four years,” Bucky added.

“Was it really?” Darcy asked in surprise. “I always thought it was three years.”

“You dropped in July of 1939, and you were taken out in June of 1943,” Steve pointed out.

Darcy scowled. “Damn it. That means I’m four years older than I was,” she muttered almost to herself. She shook her head. “I like three better. Let’s stay with three.”

Bucky snorted. “I wouldn’t worry about it, doll. Steve here is turning ninety-something next year.”

Darcy blinked at that. “90?”

“95,” Natasha corrected her.

“Wow.” Darcy took another long swallow of her coffee.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

A curiously wrapped package was dropped onto the table in front of Darcy.

“What is this?” She asked curiously, looking up at Clint for an explanation.

“Open it,” he told her, and then stole one of her muffins.

“Hey!” She protested, but she turned back to the package.

Cautiously, because with Clint you never knew, she opened the package. A set of knives gleamed at her. She stared at the knives for a moment and then frowned at Clint.

“Who told you?” She asked.

“Who didn’t tell me,” he countered with a long look at her.

Darcy could feel a dull blush creep up her neck.

“You were out of town.” She played with the edge of the cloth the knives had been wrapped in.

“I’m back in town now,” he told her.

Darcy sighed. “I accidentally time traveled a couple years ago, fell in love with this snarky asshole named Steve Rogers, married him, and then got sucked back home.”

Clint stared at her for a minute. “You married Captain America?” He blew out all his breath and muttered something that sounded vaguely like _Phil is going to go apeshit_.

“He wasn’t Captain America,” she muttered. “He was just this guy from Brooklyn; a nice, decent man who cared about… everything.”

“Wow,” he muttered. “I can see why you didn’t say anything. No one would’ve believed you.”

“Or stupid HYDRA would’ve used stupid SHIELD to use me,” she retorted with a dark scowl. “Some kind of time-traveling freaky experiments.”

“Until they found out who you’d married,” Clint muttered with a frown. “Then they would have tortured you to get to the Captain.” His frown grew even darker. “We start with the knives today.”

Darcy pouted at him, and Clint shook his head.

“No dice, Darce. Knives. Today.”

“Remember how I told you that you were the best?” Darcy asked as she stood up and grabbed her sweater.

“This is what makes me the best,” Clint replied airily. “There’s a gym on this floor. None of the other scientists is using it, which is perfect.”

“I knew having Steve back was too good to be true,” she muttered as she followed Clint reluctantly down the hall.

 


	7. Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After years apart, Steve and Darcy readjust to having one another in their lives.

Of all the possible reactions from his fellow teammates that Steve had expected, being cold-cocked by Thor was not one of them. Then again, Steve hadn’t realized that he could be cold-cocked anymore. He blinked blearily, staring up into the furious face of the god of thunder. Thor grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifted him in the air, and shook him.

“You have swived my shield-sister!” He bellowed and shook Steve again.

Steve put his hands on Thor’s. “Look, I’m not even sure that I know what that means, or who your sister is, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it,” he tried to explain.

Thor growled at him.

“Thor! Put Steve down!” Jane screamed as she ran into the room. She turned to glare at Tony who was sprawled on the couch smirking at the scene in front of him. “What the hell did you tell him?”

“The truth,” Tony said nonchalantly and tossed a hot tamale in his mouth. “That the Capsicle here was currently getting thawed out by your lab assistant.”

Thor growled again, but this time Steve growled with him.

“You ever talk about my wife that way again, and I’m gonna rip that glowing thing outta your chest and have Bucky crush it with his metal arm,” Steve snarled at Tony as he struggled to get free of Thor.

Thor dropped him on the ground.

“Your wife?” Thor appeared to be confused.

“Darcy,” Jane explained. “Steve married Darcy.”

A deep scowl settled itself onto Thor’s face. “You married my shield-sister without consulting me?”

“Look, Thor, sweetie,” Jane rushed forward and tried to distract her boyfriend. “They got married about 70 years ago. Steve didn’t even know you then.”

Thor frowned. “But the Lady Darcy is my shield-sister. She deserves the best. Did Steve wrestle a dragon, or kill a monster that was attacking her village?”

“Um…,” Jane looked at Steve helplessly.

“Sure he did,” Tony interjected from the couch. “He fought Red Skull.”

“I suppose that was a worthy feat,” Thor grumbled.

“Sure it was,” Jane said encouragingly. “He was kind of attacking her village, if you consider that he was bent on world domination.”

“Hmph.”

“Why don’t you come to my lab? I think Darcy stocked your favorite Pop Tarts,” Jane entreated him.

“Pop Tarts?” Thor appeared somewhat mollified.

“Come on, let’s go see.” Jane took his hand and tugged him out of the room. She turned to glare at Tony on her way out of the room and mouthed _you are so dead_ at him.

Tony smirked at her.

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

“I feel like an idiot,” Darcy protested.

“Better you feel like a live idiot, than looking cool, but dead,” Clint said with a shrug.

“Is that some kind of assassin proverb?” Darcy demanded.

“Maybe. Now try aiming for the target.” Clint stood by impassively with his arms crossed over his chest.

Learning to aim and throw knives had taken about a month, and Clint still wasn’t satisfied with her aim. He’d pronounced her ‘barely passable’, and now he had her crouched on her hands and knees, attempting to throw a knife over her shoulder at a target. She aimed as carefully as she could while balanced on one hand and threw. It hit the target and she gave a little cheer.

Clint sighed loudly.

“That went wide before it hit the target,” he complained. “If you were in the air ducts it would have struck the side and fallen short.”

Darcy glared at him. “I am _never_ going to throw knives at people while I’m wriggling through the vents.”

“Not with that aim you won’t,” Clint agreed.

“I won’t _need_ to,” she snapped at him.

Clint snorted. “Until someone leaks information about you,” he reminded her. “Then you’re going to be a giant target.”

Darcy sighed. She knew that Clint was right. She hated it, but she knew that he had a point. Tony, for all that he was an asshole, liked her for the most part, and had already updated the security to her room, Steve’s room, and he had uploaded special security protocols to Jarvis that were very similar to what he already had on Pepper.

“Fine,” Darcy muttered. She pulled another knife from the thigh sheath that Clint had helped her strap on and assumed the position again. “This feels so wrong,” she muttered as she took careful aim.

“Don’t take so much time to aim,” Clint ordered. “Look, and then throw. Use your instincts.”

Darcy sighed again and did as he ordered. Her knife quivered in the wall, a good 10 feet from her intended target.

“I don’t think I have instincts,” she muttered.

“You do, you’re just resisting them,” Clint retorted. He moved forward and took the knives out of the wall and the target, handing them back to her hilt first. “Again.”

“I hate you.”

“Join the club.”

Darcy frowned down at her knees. “Clint? I don’t really hate you,” she told her knees in a small voice.

“I know, Darce. Again.”

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“I was thinkin’ that maybe we could step out together,” Steve murmured.

They were wrapped around one another, in Steve’s bed this time, and Darcy pulled back to look up at him with a smirk.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” She teased.

He shrugged under her and his ears turned pink. “Maybe,” he muttered.

“Movies?” She asked curiously. Most of their dates had been to the movies, and that was what was the most familiar to the both of them.

“Maybe.” He gave her a hopeful look.

“Will it be a double date with Bucky and Natasha? I wouldn’t want people to talk,” Darcy teased him.

He rolled his eyes at her and pinched her bottom.

“There’s a theater that Ms. Potts recommended,” Steve explained with a blush that made her want to kiss him. “It plays old movies.”

“Really?” Darcy her lip and pretended as though she were considering the idea. “I do like old movies,” she admitted with a small smile.

“And sittin’ in the dark with me,” he reminded her.

She gave him a slow, lazy smile. “There is that,” she agreed.

“Saturday night?” Steve was looking up at her with his patented puppy eyes.

Darcy leaned down and bit his bottom lip. “Just like old times?” She asked.

Steve moaned into her mouth. “Yeah, Angel. Just like old times.”

Unfortunately for Steve, his eyes were closed and he didn’t see the evil smirk on his wife’s face.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“Are you sure about this?” Natasha asked with a doubtful expression.

“You and Bucky are… you’ve got some history, yeah?” Darcy looked over at the other woman expectantly.

Darcy wasn’t sure what Bucky and Natasha were to each other, exactly. Steve would just shrug, and Bucky couldn’t remember huge chunks of his life since becoming HYDRA’s favorite toy. Natasha was notoriously closemouthed about where she’d had breakfast let alone who she was seeing romantically.

“Яша and I have history,” Natasha murmured as she scowled at her own reflection.

“Yasha?” Darcy blinked.

Natasha shrugged. “It’s the diminutive of Яков… James.”

“But… didn’t they call him the Winter Soldier?” Darcy asked.

A closed-off look slid over Natasha’s face.

“Never mind,” Darcy said quickly.

“In the beginning,” Natasha murmured. “He remembered... a bit. He asked me to call him James. Later, when they managed to wipe more of him away... it helped him remember... to connect to his past.”

“Right.” Darcy stared at her for a moment. “So, you’ve tried to help Bucky, er... James, remember—to get back what Hydra has stolen from him.” She paused and swallowed back the urge to cry, and maybe try to hug the Black Widow. “Which, by the way, earns you major points in my book.”

“Why are you always giving out points?” Natasha asked with a look of confusion.

Darcy waved a hand. “Never mind. That’s not the point. This is going to knock his socks off, and it might even help him remember a bit more.”

Natasha frowned at Darcy and then turned to frown at herself in the mirror. “If you say so.”

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

 

“Is this a joke?”

Clint groaned a little and knuckled the sleep out of his eyes. “Is what a joke?”

“Don’t get jealous, but the Captain is married,” Phil snapped. He glared from his phone to Clint. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I would think it would be self-evident,” Clint retorted.

“How did he get married? Married to who? Has this person been vetted by SHIELD? What if they are a HYDRA plant?” Phil paced back and forth and continued to rant. “He’s Captain America!”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I missed you too, babe,” he drawled as he rolled out of bed and loped toward the bathroom.

“I missed you!” Phil called after him. “I’m just... worried. What if someone is trying to take advantage of the Avengers?”

“I think she just plans to have a ton of sex with him,” Clint called back.

“Clint!” Phil yelled.

After a quick shower, during which Clint allowed Phil to apologize for worrying more about Captain America’s love life than his boyfriend, the two made their way down to the communal kitchen on the 35th floor. Phil stopped in the hallway and stared.

Moving from the other direction was Natasha Romanoff, but she was dressed like a pin-up girl from WWII. Her brilliant red hair was pinned up off her face and let fall in loose waves. Her dress was a deep forest green that flattered her lithe, athletic figure.

Next to her was Darcy who looked like she’d just stepped out of the pages of Look magazine. The front of her hair had been set in large rolls with the rest of her hair left to fall in waves down her back. Her dress was a navy blue with white piping that hugged her curves, displaying her assets.

“Angel,” Phil said with a look of shock on his face.

Clint turned to stare at his boyfriend, and Darcy frowned.

“Let’s just go with Darcy,” she said coolly.

“There were bets on whether or not you were real,” Phil muttered. “I just... it never occurred to me that... you’re her. You’re Angel.”

“Okay, you just got downgraded to Mrs. Rogers,” Darcy snapped. “There’s only one man that gets to call me Angel, and you aren’t him.”

“What do you mean there were bets on whether or not she was real?” Natasha asked with her own frown. “We didn’t know that he was married.”

“We had his sketch journals,” Phil explained, barely tearing his eyes away from Darcy to look at Natasha.

“You looked through Steve’s journals?” Darcy shrieked and blushed a brilliant red. “You had no right!”

“What’s goin’ on?” Steve demanded with a frown. The moment when he caught sight of Darcy was evident to everyone. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Angel,” he rasped and his voice had dropped an entire octave.

Darcy moved toward him and turned to scowl at Phil. She pointed an accusing finger in Phil’s direction. “They’ve got your journals. _He’s_ pawed through all of them.”

Steve glared at Phil. “I’ll want those back,” he snapped.

“That’s fine, they’ve already been scanned into SHIELD’s records,” Phil replied.

“Oh my god,” Darcy shrieked. She smacked Steve on the arm. “You told me that you would keep them safe! You said that no one would ever see them!”

Steve’s ears turned pink and he appeared to be incredibly uncomfortable.

“I’m going to guess that Darcy posed for a few extra special pictures,” Clint drawled when Darcy was done panicking.

“When Steve was accepted into the special program,” Darcy whispered and she flushed again.

“Those will go missing,” Natasha said firmly. “I will make sure of it.”

Darcy beamed at Natasha.

“So... Angel is your wife?” Phil asked with a slight frown.

“ _Darcy_ is my wife,” Steve corrected him with a cold glare.

“But, in all of your journals she’s labeled as ‘Angel’,” Phil protested.

“That’s because she’s _Steve’s_ angel,” Bucky added as he sauntered into the room to stand next to Steve and Darcy. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly when he caught sight of Natasha. “She sure as shootin’ ain’t yours and if you keep callin’ her that, either Darcy or Steve is gonna punch you. I’d put my money on Darcy,” Bucky continued.

“How?” Phil looked at all of them with a frown. “We’ve had those journals since he went missing in WWII. Ang—er,” he paused at the furious glares that he was getting from both Darcy and Steve. “Um, Mrs. Rogers, is in all of them.”

“If we tell you are you going to tell SHIELD and/or HYDRA?” Darcy demanded suspiciously.

Phil twitched.

“Yeah, I’m not talking,” Darcy decided. She pulled on Steve’s arm. “Come on, we’re going to miss the movie.”

“But,” Phil protested.

Darcy scowled at him. “You’ve been gone for months. Go do bad, naughty things to Clint. If you don’t piss me off, I might tell you what happened.”

Bucky moved to Natasha’s side and gave her an appreciative once over. “You clean up good, doll,” he complimented her with a cheeky grin.

“If you say so,” Natasha murmured.

“I do say so,” Bucky murmured back.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

“So are you still pissed off at Phil?” Clint asked while they were in the gym. “I wouldn’t ask except for the fact that he’s completely heartbroken that Captain America hates him.”

“Steve doesn’t hate him,” Darcy said as she aimed and threw a knife. She grinned at Clint when it actually hit the target.

“Not bad,” Clint told her. “Again.”

“He just blew his fuse knowing that most of SHIELD has seen a bit more of me than either one of us liked. As long as he stops calling me Angel, Steve will probably get over it,” Darcy explained as she took aim again and threw the next knife.

“You’re getting better,” Clint praised her.

Darcy snorted. “If that translates to ‘you mostly hit the target now’, then yeah.”

“Don’t tear yourself down,” Clint argued. “You’ve only been doing this for a couple of months. Accuracy and speed take time to master. Give yourself a break.”

“Right.” Darcy nodded and picked up another knife.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

Evenings had become Darcy’s favorite time of day. So far, Steve hadn’t had anything major come up at work, and he had been home every night after 6. Darcy would hurry home as soon as she could, and they usually had dinner together. At the moment, home was sort of a vague ‘your place or mine’ sort of a designation, but either place worked equally well. Eventually they would pick one, or maybe Tony would give them a new one—one that belonged to the both of them.

After dinner they would, usually, retreat to the bedroom where they would spend the rest of the night. They were still too conscious of how much time they had spent apart, how much of each other’s lives that they had missed. Darcy was currently sprawled across Steve’s chest tracing patterns on his skin.

“Are you going to dress up again this Saturday?” Steve tried to ask nonchalantly, but he failed completely.

Darcy laughed, and pressed a kiss to the closest nipple.

“Liked that, did you?” She teased him.

Steve tugged on a lock of her hair. “You know I did. I thought Buck was going to swallow his tongue when he got a load of Natasha.”

“Did it help him at all? With his memory, I mean,” Darcy asked anxiously. She liked to think that her presence helped, and that maybe Natasha’s dress-up had helped, but it was difficult to tell.

Steve sighed and his arms came around Darcy’s back to cradle her protectively against him.

“I think so?” He offered. “Buck won’t talk about a lot of it, but... yeah. I think it actually helped him a bit.”

“Good.” Darcy went back to tracing patterns over Steve’s skin.

“What’s gonna happen next, Angel?” Steve asked after a few minutes of companionable silence.

“Sleep?” Darcy suggested with a shrug.

“No, I meant us. The future,” he elaborated. “We never worried about it before because we never thought we had one. I knew you were gonna leave me one day.”

“Oh. That.” Darcy stared at his chest refusing to make eye contact until Steve nudged her. “Well... let’s take that as it comes, okay? We need to get Bucky back to himself first.”

“Of course,” Steve agreed automatically. “But Angel... we haven’t been using rubbers.”

“We didn’t need to,” Darcy explained. “I’m on the pill.”

“The what?”

A brief explanation of the scientific advances of birth control left Steve somewhat shell-shocked.

“Oh,” he murmured in a dazed voice. “Well okay then.”

“Do you... did you want...” Darcy trailed off.

Steve blushed. “Only if you do,” he told her.

“Maybe? Someday?” Darcy’s cheeks turned pink.

“Okay.”

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

The first time that the Avengers were called up for active duty, Darcy spent the entire time clutching Jane and praying for Bucky and Steve. Occasionally, she would remember to throw Natasha and Thor in there, too.

“They’ll be fine,” Jane soothed her. “They’ll all be fine. This is what they’re good at.”

That was easy for Jane to say, but every time Darcy closed her eyes she imagined her Steve, her slender, short husband, throwing himself in front of bullies twice his size and coming home with black eyes and a bloody nose. It was difficult for her to remember that he was so much stronger, so much _more_ now. It didn’t help at all that when he came home he was sporting a bruise on his cheek and a split lip.

“You should see the other guy, doll,” Steve tried to joke.

“Sit down,” Darcy snapped. Her hands fisted on her hips and she glared at him. “Did you even let the doctors look at you?”

“He didn’t,” Bucky offered from the doorway. He sauntered in and sat down at the table next to Steve. He jerked a thumb in his best friend’s direction. “This guy was too busy panicking about how much you were worrying about him.”

Darcy sighed at that and shook her head. “What am I going to do with you, Rogers?”

Steve grinned at her, and then winced when he strained his split lip. “Feed me?” He asked hopefully. “Fighting always makes me really hungry.”

“You’re just lucky that Jane kicked me out of her lab. I was so bored that I made pie,” Darcy informed him.

Bucky sat up at that. “Apple?” He asked.

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I’m insulted that you had to ask. With the way you two eat these days, I made two. One for each of you.”

“You’re the best, Angel,” Steve told her.

“I know I am. Now go see the damn doctor, or I’m giving them both to Clint,” Darcy ordered.

Steve and Bucky jumped up and raced out of the apartment.

 

 

/\/\/\/\/\

 

 

The third time that the Avengers were activated, Darcy was starting to get used to the routine. She puttered around in the brand new apartment that Tony had given Mr. and Mrs. Captain America to share. She already had two apple pies cooling on the counter, and a beef stew in the crock pot. Whenever Steve and Bucky came back from saving the world and stuff they seemed to crave comfort food. More often than not, Bucky would drag Natasha over with him. Darcy had a bottle of vodka and some ridiculously expensive caviar that she’d swiped from Tony’s pantry chilling in the fridge just in case.

The explosion that rocked the Tower was completely unexpected. The alarm klaxons began ringing and anxiety flooded Darcy. Quickly, she ran into her room and changed into the training outfit that Clint had made for her. She slipped all of her knives into their slots, and then hurried to the front door. She paused with her hand on the door.

“Jarvis?” She tried.

Silence was the only reply. That worried Darcy because Clint had suggested that taking out Jarvis would be the first goal of any would-be attacker. He had even suggested that it might be an inside job.

Biting her lip, Darcy turned the knob of her door and poked her head out into the hallway. This floor was mostly Avengers so it was empty. Silently, Darcy moved her way down the hall to the air vent access panel. Carefully, she did exactly as Clint had painstakingly trained her to do. She opened the access panel, slid inside and tightened the bolts as best as she could from the inside. Then she quietly shimmied her way down the air vent, away from the access panel.

“Mrs. Rogers?”

Darcy froze in the air vent, forgetting even to breathe. The unknown voice called for her once or twice more before moving on down the hall. She wasn’t sure if they would think to look for her in the air vents. She had a sneaking suspicion that your average bad guy didn’t expect that everyone would head for the nearest crawlspace. She thought it might just be a Clint thing.

Fear was a powerful motivator, and Darcy kept moving the way that Clint had trained her. She made her way toward the communal kitchen on the 35th floor, the floor below her, because that was a general rendez-vous point for the Avengers whenever they were done fighting. They usually ended up having some kind of weird quasi-potluck, and Darcy would sit in Steve’s lap so that he could touch her and know that everything was okay while he’d eat more food than she’d ever dreamed of eating in one sitting.

At one point, there was a strange noise, and then the air smelled... off. _Oh crap_ was Darcy’s last thought before she lost consciousness.

Darcy woke to the bellowing of an injured bear, or at least that’s what she had dreamed it was, anyway.

“What the fuck do you mean, Jarvis can’t find her! I thought your damn AI was able to do every fucking thing! WHERE IS MY WIFE?”

“Steve?” Darcy lifted her head and smacked her lips. Then she grimaced. Whatever that knockout gas had been it had packed a strong punch and had a horrid aftertaste.

 _Steve_. The injured bear was Steve.

“Don’t you tell me to calm down! Your girl is standing right fucking next to you! My angel is only god knows where! If one of those bastards has even _breathed_ wrong on her, I’ll fucking kill them!”

Blearily, Darcy moved so that she was on her hands and knees again. She carefully made her way towards Steve who seemed to be a lot more yelly than he normally was. And cursy. Steve didn’t usually curse a blue streak. Then again, he thought it was rude to do in front of women so he probably cursed like that all the time when it was just him and Bucky.

Darcy grinned at the air vent. Her Steve was so sweet and gentlemanly.

“Fuck Fury, I ain’t going nowhere until I’ve got Angel back!”

Normally.

Slowly she crawled until the yelling sounded like it was right below her. She sat down, and then knocked on the air vent. The yelling stopped.

“Darce, is that you?” Clint’s voice drifted up to her.

“Angel?” Steve’s voice came right after and it was filled with anxious hope.

“Steve!” Darcy crowed happily. “I found you!”

Apparently, Steve was able to rip through air vents with his shield. Who knew? He snatched her out of the air vent and had clutched her to his chest. Then he’d bent her backwards over his arm until her head practically touched the floor and kissed her until she was dizzy.

“What the hell were you doing in the air vents?” Steve demanded once he’d let her come up for air.

“Evasive maneuvers,” she informed him haughtily. Then she frowned over his shoulder at Clint. “Being in the air vent isn’t so smart if they disperse knockout gas.”

Clint winced and nodded. “I was going to get you fitted with a gas mask,” he told her, “I just hadn’t had a chance yet.”

“What was with all the yelling?” Darcy demanded. She smacked him on the chest. “Ma would’ve had a fit if she’d heard half of that.”

Steve clutched at her at those words and he buried his face in her hair. “I thought I’d lost you again,” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear him.

“Never,” she promised and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oooh, Steve. There are two of you.”

“Probably after effects of the gas,” Tony muttered. “Take her to medical, and then take her back to your place.”

“I’ll get Phil to make sure you have 48 hours,” Clint offered.

“Please,” Steve told him gratefully.

“I’ll come with you to medical,” Bucky muttered.

Steve nodded at him. “Thanks.”

“To the end of the line,” Bucky reminded him.

Steve hoisted his angel in his arms and nodded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
